


Be Kind (Doctor Reader x Levi Ackerman)

by chronoxotic



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, 進撃の巨人 | Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan (Movies)
Genre: Action, Angst, Anxiety, Brief Love Triangle, Death, Doctor - Freeform, Drama, Drama & Romance, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, F/M, Fighting, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Levi Ackerman - Freeform, Levi Attack On Titan, Levi Romance, Levi x Reader - Freeform, Like, Love, Love Confessions, Lust, Medical, Medical Trauma, Mystery, POV Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Panic Attack, Possessive Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Romantic love, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Titans, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:47:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25843792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronoxotic/pseuds/chronoxotic
Summary: Ambitious. Intelligent. Purposeful. With dreams of becoming a doctor ever since you were young, you finally had your long-awaited goal within your grasp. After years of working in civilian hospitals, you received an opportunity that steered your life into an unexpected turn. A recruitment notice, where all medical professionals are welcomed to join the Survey Corps as a doctor and a soldier. They were on the lookout for multipotential individuals who excel in both the medical field and the battlefield. You took the plunge and entered a whole new world - training with the military, swinging blades, and catching the eye of a particular aloof man in the Corps - Captain Levi Ackerman himself. An unexpected relationship grows and you learn more about the complicated nature of this man. Will you be able to show him how to love?
Relationships: Levi & Reader, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)/Reader, Levi/Reader
Comments: 167
Kudos: 439





	1. A New Start

**Author's Note:**

> What you can expect from this story is a slow build romance, illustrating the dynamics between the reader and Levi over time. I never liked reading romance stories with rushed relationships between characters, I always loved stories that slowly build the chemistry and tension between pairings. This story is told in second person so the reader will be referred to as "you" or "Y/N". To be honest I'm not too keen with using the term "Y/N" in stories but it's just easier that way. I'll also try my best to avoid specific physical characteristics describing the reader so it can be more relatable to all readers, the only specific thing was that I described her as shorter and more petite than Levi because I felt that it was more suitable that way (by the way in real life I am taller than Levi but it's just my personal preference to be shorter than him HAHA).
> 
> I will also be introducing a few new characters of my own, some are more relevant or significant than the others, that act as supporting characters to help with character development and backstories of the reader. These new characters will also help build the relationship between the reader and Levi. Also, do keep in mind that I loosely follow the Attack On Titan plot in the story, the main story remains the same but I'm just changing a few events to make it easier.
> 
> In this chapter, it will be an introduction of the two, with the reader settling into her new lifestyle and both of them forming their first impressions of each other. Hope you enjoy it! I will be updating regularly, at least once a week! :) I really appreciate all your support.
> 
> Also, fun fact, this story was actually inspired from a song called Be Kind by Halsey and Marshmello. I was watching Attack On Titan and happened to be listening to this song around that time, and was inspired by the lyrics of the song. To me, this song is about someone facing problems with their lover, and how their lover struggles to confide their problems and fears with them, due to past trauma or maybe their own ego. Their lover is broken and unable to show love, and they just want their lover to know that they can be kind to them and let their guard down. It reminded me of how Levi has suffered a lot of past trauma and seems to have trouble expressing his feelings, and hence, I decided to create a story to portray this. You can go listen to this song, it's really great and you'll get maximum feels if you listen to it while reading this story :)

**Chapter 1: A New Start**

You’ve been staring at the recruitment poster for almost five minutes now, eyebrows harrowed and eyes transfixed on the words “Dedicate Your Hearts – Survey Corps Military Doctors Wanted”. The iconic symbol of the Survey Corps’ Wings of Freedom was stamped right in the middle of the poster, along with a brief description of what the recruitment is about. It seems like the Survey Corps is currently looking for medically trained professionals to bring along on their expeditions. Not just any regular doctor though, a doctor with a soldier’s training and background. It was specifically stated that it would require a test of physical and medical capabilities, along with months of training and preparation.

“But why don’t they just bring along regular doctors?” Asked a fellow doctor who had also gathered around the poster. “Why do we need to train with the military?” he seems appalled at the thought of going through months of gruelling training.

“If you went outside the walls with no clue on how to use their maneuvering gear, do you really think you’d even last more than a minute?” a nurse jabbed at him. 

“He’s right. We’d be nothing more than a burden if we don’t know how to fight,” another doctor answered.

“This sounds cool and all, but I think I’ll pass. I studied my life away to save lives in the interior. Would be a waste of all that studying if I died in an instant,” sighed another.

As the crowd started to disperse, you were still staring at the poster, swimming in your own whirpool of thoughts. Enlisting as a Military Doctor in the Survey Corps had the same risk as joining as a fully-fledged soldier. Everyone knew that doing so means frequent titan encounters, and forever having to live with the fatalistic knowledge that you could die in any moment. You also knew that each successive expedition exponentially increases one’s chances of survival and experience, and you could become a veteran Military Doctor that saves valuable lives in the Corps. _As a doctor, what did your title really mean to you? Especially when humanity faced the constant threat of extinction._

You returned to your post in the medical ward and attended to your patients, you still had a few more days to decide. Little did you know though, that you already had already subconsciously made your decision.

\--

It didn’t take long to sort out the administration work. You managed to enroll into the Survey Corps’ Military Doctor tryouts, along with about 30 other candidates – more than you had expected. The first round involved a written medical exam, followed by a practical medical exam in the second round. You passed the exams with flying colours. You were a top student in your medical school, and never stopped studying even when you were working as a full-time civilian doctor in Wall Rose.

The third round was a physical aptitude test, involving long distance running, sprinting, climbing, and strength tests. Thankfully, you made sure to keep yourself relatively fit even as a doctor all these years, so you were still able to keep up. The final round was a test of teamwork, everyone was separated into groups and had to work together to save dummy soldiers in a forest from dummy titans.

The exams took two full days to complete and were assessed by team captains of the Survey Corps along with the intimidating Instructor Keith Shadis. Occasionally, you also saw a tall blond man whom you recognized as the Commander of the Scouts, Erwin Smith, and a shorter black-haired man, who you assumed was the famous Levi Ackerman. You cringed and just hoped that they didn’t see you trip over that tree branch the other day in the physical test or spit out mud during the teamwork test. Anyways, you were too busy either racking your brain up for medical terms or running through mud to pay attention to what they were doing.

\--

“Look at that one, he’s only on his first lap,” scoffed Levi, “and he’s already wheezing to his death.”

“The military isn’t cut out for everyone, that’s why we held these tryouts in the first place,” shrugged Erwin with an empathetic look on his face.

The duo stopped by to watch the tryouts from a distance, collecting updates from the instructors and keeping an eye out for outstanding recruits.

“They’ve earned my admiration for trying though. Not easy to be a doctor and a soldier at the same time,” said Levi as he narrowed his eyes. “And what exactly is that person doing?”

He pointed his face to the direction of a girl grasping on a human dummy like her life depended on it, engulfed in mud from head to toe. The girl coughed a handful of mud before collapsing to her knees. That girl was you.

Levi crinkled his nose a little at the scene while Erwin let out a deep chuckle.

“They’re trying very hard, it’s great to see such spirit,” Erwin beamed. “That girl finished first in the sprinting test, she was doing so well in the other tests too. We’re lucky to have some talented recruits in our first batch.”

“Let’s see how they do in the real training,” Levi muttered as the duo started to walk off.

\--

Following the tryouts, you suffered almost 3 full days of body ache. In the meantime, you had also submitted letters of recommendations from your previous superiors and senior doctors, as they were vital to determining your final ranking in the tryouts.

The results were released in a couple of days, and you were ecstatic to find out that you had been selected! You packed your bags and belongings, and bid your farewells to your fellow doctors, nurses, and patients from your hospital.

“Please be careful.” Said Luca, one of your fellow doctors. You smiled and nodded at the tall, well-built blond man. A hint of sadness showed on his warm brown eyes. 

“I’ve always had a feeling you’d get bored of this hospital one day. You’re always looking for something new,” he sighed.

“Am I really too free-spirited like you always say?” you chuckled.

“A little bit. Anyways, I really do think they will need your skills. You could save lives of crucial people out there," he smiled and gave you an encouraging pat.

You thanked your friend and left for the Survey Corps Headquarters.

\--

It was late afternoon and you had just arrived at the Survey Corps Headquarters. You found out that there were only three other recruits that were selected from the tryouts. Gosh, you swore you spotted a lot of talented ones back then.

You were suddenly greeted by a Survey Corps member who led the four of you to your individual rooms where you will be sleeping, and then off to personally meet Commander Erwin Smith. You entered a large room which you assume must be their office. The Commander was tall and muscular, clad in the Survey Corps uniform with the usual brown jacket. He had a natural charismatic aura that filled you with amazement and respect for him.

Your gaze averted to a jet black-haired man on the left of the room, leaning on the wall while eyeing the four of you with steely grey eyes. You immediately recognized him as _the_ Captain Levi Ackerman and came to the realization that you were standing in the same room as Humanity’s Strongest Soldier. He had a piercing gaze and sharp facial features that stood out on his pale skin. You’ve heard about what he looked like from other people, but you had no idea that he would look this _handsome_ in person. He donned a fine black blazer, a white blouse, and black trousers, and you thought that he looked rather classy in this fit. Although you were shorter than him, he was still shorter than you expected. You could also tell that he was well-built and muscular despite the layers of clothing.

Levi took a good look at the four recruits entering the room and to his surprise, you were there. He could’ve sworn you were the same girl that coughed up mud the other day. He didn’t want to be judgmental, but he thought you didn’t look like the type to survive in the military at all. Perhaps it was the soft, feminine vibes that you gave out, or your small petite build compared to the rest. _Who was he to judge though? He’s much smaller compared to most men and here he was, branded as Humanity’s Strongest._ _Let’s not judge too quickly, he reminded himself._

“A warm welcome and congratulations to you all. The four of you have been selected from the tryouts because of your own outstanding abilities as doctors, and your potential to become great soldiers as well,” Erwin Smith beamed as he stood up from his desk to address the four of you who are standing in a line. “Your skills surpassed the other candidates’, and I’m sure you are fully aware that this is a role that not all doctors can take.”

Levi had an expressionless gaze plastered on his face that to others, seems like he was bored. Many won’t notice though, that he was observing the expression on yours, the way you were beaming from ear to ear amused him a little. _Tch, a little compliment from the Commander and you were like a child receiving praise from a parent._

“Just going to sharing more about what this is all about, so kindly bear with me a little. It’s a new initiative that we started, considering the high fatality rates of our expeditions. We do have Survey Corps medics, but they are always located in the back of our formation – in the safest areas. Mobility and efficiency of the medics are limited, as they are untrained and always have to be protected from the titans by soldiers. Because of this, soldiers in the front and middle lines are almost never able to get the help or treatment they need. Injured ones almost never survive for long and in many cases, our medics have also died as they are unable to flee or fight back. If we could have independent medics who have the mobility and the right training to tend to the injured, AND protect themselves at the same time, it could greatly increase the survival rates of our expeditions,” Erwin Smith explained, with the four of you nodding along.

“That man over there is Captain Levi Ackerman, I’m sure you all recognize him,” the Commander pointed his arm to Levi’s direction, and you all looked at him and saluted him.

“Would you all like to introduce yourselves?” Erwin eyed the four of you.

“Niko Schultz, sir!” said the tall dark-haired doctor on the most left as he saluted. You recognized him as one of your good friends that worked in your previous hospital and was surprised to see him earlier. “Rheumatologist. Physician in Wall Sina for 3 years!”

“Johanne Olbrich!” grinned a red-haired woman next to Niko. You recognized her too, but not in a good way. _What is she even doing here?_ “Physician at Wall Sina for 3 years and was the personal physician of the Kaiser family!” She spoke, emphasizing on the _Wall Sina_ and _Kaiser family_ part. _Was she trying to show off_? You graduated from the same medical school and worked in the same hospital on your first year. Johanne had always been rather cynical and _snakey_ towards you, so you never really took a liking to her. You were already avoiding her the moment you saw her outside the headquarters, because that girl means nothing but trouble and a pain in the ass.

“Mario Mueller! Physician at Wall Rose for 2 years!” said the recruit next to you, a very young-looking blond man with messy hair. _He looks a 15-year old!_ You gulped at the realization that it was your turn. you felt the eyes of the Commander and the Captain on you. Bringing your arm into a salute, you took a deep breath. _Why are you so nervous? It’s just an intro._

“Y/N, sir! Rheumatologist and physician at Wall Sina for 1 year and Wall Rose for 2 years! Look forward to working with you all!” you chimed and smiled. You tried not to emphasize the Wall Sina part like Johanna did. _There’s nothing to show off about that._

Levi raised his brow ever so slightly when you mentioned you worked at both Wall Sina _and_ Rose. He doesn’t know much about the medical sector, but he does know that securing a job at Wall Sina was the holy grail of any doctor’s career, why did you work at Rose after that?

“Wonderful to know you all,” Erwin smiled, “You’ll be working with us and the rest of our Survey Corps members for our next expedition in about two months. For now, you’ll be receiving high intensity training, prioritizing ODM gear training and titan combat training,” the Commander explained.

“Sir, will we still be able to practice our medical skills?” Niko raised a hand and asked.

“Yes of course, you’ll also be working in our medical ward, with other soldier doctors, mostly tending to injured cadets during their training or recovering members from previous expeditions,” Erwin answered.

“Sorry Sir, but is two months sufficient time to use the ODM gear and fight titans?” Mario asked meekly.

“That depends on you brats and how disciplined you are with your training.” Levi remarked with a flat tone. Mario gulped. You were a little surprised at his aloof tone and how he called you all _brats. Rude._ He seemed like a no-nonsense kind of person and you made a mental note to yourself.

“Your training starts tomorrow morning and along the way, you’ll learn more about your role as a Survey Corps Military Doctor. You’ll train along with our cadets and Instructor Shadis, whom I’m sure you’ve met at your tryout,” Erwin said. You shivered at the name of the instructor.

“Levi and I will stop by occasionally to keep updated, and to discuss plans of our new formation with you. That is all, have a good rest!” Erwin dismissed you all, and the four of you headed to the door.

“Oh, except you, Y/N! I need a quick word with you.” Erwin ushered you back in. The other three gave confused looks at you. Johanne shot you a dirty look.

 _Tch, is Erwin really doing this now?_ Levi scoffed inside his head and watched as you meekly walked back into the office. He already knew that Erwin wanted to get one of the newly recruited doctors to treat his sleeping disorder. Erwin kept going on about how things were getting serious and he needed Levi to be in his top condition, and he was also getting terrible nightmares lately.

Once the three were gone, you asked the Commander, “How can I help you, sir?”

“Ah, relax you’re not in trouble. I just have a task especially for you, since I heard you are also a research psychologist,” Erwin said.

“Oh, thank you sir! I’m not a licensed psychologist though, I just do some research and study on my free time,” you laughed nervously, “What’s the task, sir?”

“Don’t be so humble! Anyways, this matter is confidential so do keep it to yourself. To put it simply, we need your help to get Levi to sleep properly.”

“Sleep?” you raised a brow.

“He’s quite an insomniac, he has a sleeping disorder you see,” Erwin continued.

“It’s not a disorder. It’s just a habit,” Levi muttered to Erwin and shot him a dirty look.

 _Um a sleep disorder? I’m a doctor specializing in muscles not a sleep therapist!_ You panicked internally and started to churn your brain on how to get Levi to sleep. _Sure_ , _I’ve done a bit psych research and all, but how can they rely on someone like me-_

“I keep advising him to get it treated because I want him to be in his top condition before the expedition, but he doesn’t want to go see a therapist in the walls cause it might stir up some pesky rumours. I heard you do some psych research so I thought you might have some knowledge in this area and help him out a little. You’re one of us now after all, so it’s much safer too,” Erwin explained.

“I will try my best sir!” you responded immediately. The slight confused look on your face didn’t escape Levi, and he wondered if you actually knew how to treat sleeping disorders properly. Oh well, he would still prefer this over seeing a therapist in the walls.

“Fantastic. You can go back to your room and get some rest first for now. This whole sleep treatment thing is flexible, and you can start arranging your schedule with Levi tomorrow,” Erwin said. “I’ll leave the rest to you, Levi.”

“Thank you, Commander!” you saluted Erwin. _Oh boy, I need to read up on sleeping disorders tonight._

“Come see me in my office tomorrow after your training. Preferably after dinner time,” Levi sighed. “I’m only doing this for you, Erwin.”

“Yes Captain!” you nodded. “Also, um, where is your office?”

“Right wing, second story. First door to the right of the stairs.” Levi said, looking impatient. His steely grey eyes made you a little nervous.

“Got it! Thank you, Commander and Captain, I look forward to working with you!” you saluted them one last time before leaving their office to head back to your room.

\--

After you left the office, you caught Johanne in the hallway and tensed up immediately. 

“Fate sure has a funny way of bringing people back together huh?” Johanne sneered and stopped you in your tracks. “What are you doing here, Y?N?”

“I should be asking you that. You enjoyed life within Wall Sina more than anyone right?” you retorted.

“And how about you? Playing hero, now are we?” she took a step closer to you. “You think you’re so mighty and noble, leaving Wall Sina and moving to Rose to treat some poor civilians and dirty underground rats. And now you’re with the Survey Corps? You disgust me.”

“Not everyone is pretentious like you, Johanne. Some people actually have their own ideals and goals. Those people that you called _underground rats_ are humans who can feel pain and emotions, and I simply did my duty as a doctor by helping them.”

“You have too much time in your hands, don’t you?” Johanne laughed. "See this is what I mean by playing hero."

“Why are you here, really?” you hissed, starting to lose patience.

“My my, calm down kitty,” she giggled, her green eyes had an eerie glazed look. “You can play hero all you want, I don’t care. I’m just here for fun.”

 _Fun? Has she gone crazy?_ You have a sickening feeling that Johanne has ulterior motives. You realized that you were just wasting your time and she was just trying to toy around with you, like she always did. You said no more and walked past Johanne, trying to drown out whatever angry thoughts you had in your head.

Just behind the corner of the hallway though, Captain Levi accidentally overheard your conversation. _The Underground?_ There was nothing about you offering voluntary help and medical treatment to the people of the Underground in your application or recommendation letters at all. Was this something you did discreetly? Just what kind of person _are_ you? Levi’s eyes narrowed as he thought about this, his interest in you starting to spark. He sipped on his tea and returned to his office before anyone could spot him.

\--

Once you were in your room, you took a deep breath and immersed yourself in your room’s surroundings for the first time. There was a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, and a window. Simple, but you liked it. After showering in the common bathing room, you laid down on your bed. The harsh training, Captain Levi’s sleeping disorder, Johanne’s strange words, a lot had happened, and you needed to just shut down. It didn’t take long for you fall asleep, tomorrow was officially start of your training.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Levi has already started to form his own impressions of the reader and they are good so far, especially at the end when he found out that she has been helping Underground civilians voluntarily. Johanne makes an appearance here, as she is an enemy of the reader's past who will help to tell the reader's backstory and show the difference facets of the reader's personality. More will be revealed as to how the reader started her career in Wall Sina, why she left in the first place, why she offered voluntary help in the Undeground, and why she has such a bad friction with Johanne. Thanks for reading! :)


	2. Sleep Disorder

**Chapter 2: Sleep Disorder**

“Cadet Y/N! Did I say you could stop lifting?!” Instructor Keith Shadis’ voice bellowed across the training ground.

“No sir!” You half-screamed, lungs burning with exhaustion as you lifted the barbells again during a chest press.

You’ve been lifting weights for the past hour with the 104thcadet corps, it was a key exercise routine in order to prepare your body for maneuvering with the ODM gear. They decided to merge the new Survey Corps Military Doctor recruits with the cadet corps, and boy were you falling behind. _It’s fine. It’s understandable. They’ve been training for the past, what, 2 years? I’ll catch up somehow._ You told yourself.

This morning during the ODM gear training, you were like a butterfly tangled in a spider’s web. The straps were suffocating, the sheath that held the blades were heavier that you expected, and the grips and grapple hooks were outright confusing. Luckily, although still shaky, you were able to hold yourself upright in the ODM gear trial. You passed by Johanne a few times and tried to forget the conversation you had with her last night. She had been sneering at you continuously during the ODM training. You also met a cadet with messy brown hair and turquoise eyes who introduced himself as Eren Jaeger, and he was nice enough to teach you a thing or two about the ODM gear. You tried to stay close to Eren for the rest of the training, since he was eager to help you out and was quite the spirit-lifter too.

Levi strolled past the training grounds and caught sight of you and Eren, with Eren trying to teach you the basics of close combat training. You mimicked Eren’s movements as the punched and kicked the air, all while laughing along with Eren. From watching parts of the cadet training today, Levi learnt a few new things about you. Like the other Military Doctor recruits, you struggled, but you never gave up. He also noticed how you managed to befriend Eren Jaeger and a bunch of other cadets pretty quickly. Seems like you were quite the social butterfly and carried yourself well around people. He won’t deny the fact that you do have quite the charming aura. Despite your friendly and warm nature, he also noted that you weren’t all completely spineless, from the way you stood up for yourself in front of Johanne last night. He quietly observed the interaction between you and Johanne during the training and concluded that the both of you were not on good terms, there were lots of sneering and glaring involved. _Past enemies maybe,_ he thought. _But that's none of my business._

“Nice! You got it!” Levi overheard Eren yell to you in the distance. It seems like you learnt a new move already.

Levi also learnt that your aptitude was not too bad. You followed instructions easily and grasped new movements quickly too. Your strength and stamina can definitely be trained, aptitude was the key. He sighed after looking around the training field and went back to his office. There was a lot to do before the new Military Doctors are capable enough to join the expedition in two months.

Later in the evening, Eren invited you to sit with him for dinner. Mario and Niko were sitting with a group of tall burly guys and you’d rather choke than sit with Johanne, so you kindly accepted Eren’s invitation to sit with him. He introduced you to his childhood friends Armin Arlert and Mikasa Ackerman, and you thought they were an interesting bunch. Mikasa appeared cold and unapproachable while Armin looked shy at first, but they were both quite nice to talk to. You definitely noticed the close bond the three of them shared and learnt about how they grew up together.

“So you’re a real doctor?” Eren asked while chewing on his bread.

“Yup, I went through almost seven years of medical school and three years of residency."

“Wait so you’re way older than us? But you look so young- ow!“ Eren’s sentence was interrupted by Mikasa who pinched his thigh.

“Sorry, he can be a little rude sometimes,” Armin muttered sheepishly.

“Ah don’t worry!” you gave an apologetic look to them. “Yes, I’m in my twenties actually.”

“My father was a doctor too. You must be very smart then, I’m glad you joined us to fight for humanity,” Eren balled his fist and grinned.

“Is this idiot’s preaching getting on your nerves?” A tall, light brown-haired man appeared next your table and crossed his arms. “Eren, give her a break, she just arrived here. Nice to meet you by the way Y/N, I heard about the Survey Corps recruiting new Military Doctors. I’m Jean Kirschtein!”

“Nice to meet you too, Jean!” you beamed and shook his hand. _I guess pretty much the whole Survey Corps knows about you and the other recruits,_ you thought.

“What the hell, Jean? I wasn’t even preaching about anything!” Eren gritted his teeth.

“So you admit that you do preach!” Jean guffawed and Eren rose to his feet, fists balled as if ready to fight.

“Whoa, what is going on?” You chuckled, half amused yet half worried a fight is going to break out.

“They’re always like that,” Armin slurped on his soup. "Eren, sit down!"

You giggled and felt happy that you at least made some friends on your first day. You hadn’t been able to talk to Niko and Mario properly, and you were worried that you wouldn’t be able to click with the younger cadets. You looked around the dining hall and caught sight of a clock on the wall. It was almost 8pm and you realized-

“Crap! I need to get going first guys, I need to take care of some paperwork with the Captain,” you gasped and scrambled to gather your cutleries.

“Paperwork?” Eren asked.

“Just some admin stuff about my application. See you all tomorrow!” You lied as you can’t tell anyone about the Captain’s sleeping disorder, and hurriedly left the table and headed out of the dining hall. You caught Johanne’s attention as you ran out, and she wondered why you were in such a hurry.

\--

You got a little lost on the way there since you were still unfamiliar with the headquarters, but eventually found your way to Captain Levi’s office. You knocked on his door and hoped it wasn’t another person’s. The door opened suddenly and revealed a man with a familiar mop of jet-black hair.

“You took a while,” Levi raised his brow as he opened the door for you.

“Sorry Captain, I got a little lost,” you smiled sheepishly.

The first thing you noticed was how his office was immaculately clean and polished. Books and folders were neatly arranged in alphabetical order, stationeries grouped according to purpose, and there was no trash in sight. The next thing you noticed was a faint, herbal-like aroma, with a slight hint of detergent. You also noticed a cupboard with what appears to be a bunch of tea sets and tea leaves. So that’s where the pleasant aroma was coming from. The Captain appears to be a very organized man, and a tea-lover!

“Are you finished looking around? This is an office, not a museum,” Levi muttered and closed the door behind him.

“Sorry! Couldn’t help but notice how clean and organized your office is,” you blushed and felt embarrassed getting caught gawking.

“As how any office should be, really. I don’t understand how anyone can be productive in a dirty, cluttered office,” Levi said as he led you to his desk. _Whew, he seems picky about cleaning._ He had some paper neatly stacked on his desk, it seemed like he was doing some admin work. You sat on the chair across him and tried not to mess anything up.

“Damn that Erwin, this is so troublesome,” Levi muttered. “I don’t see why Erwin is fussing so much about this sleep thing, I’m still alive anyway right.”

“That’s because you practically forced your body to get used to it,” you sighed and looked at him empathetically. “Humans need 8 hours of sleep to repair cells and bodily functions, even if you feel fine now this is probably only 30% or 50% of you. If you get enough sleep, your engine will be running at 100% and trust me, you’ll feel the difference.” Levi only looked at you as if you were speaking a foreign language.

“Don’t you want to get enough sleep Captain?” you asked, looking puzzled. This was the first time you’ve seen someone so disinterested at the thought of sleeping. As a medical student, sleep was like a precious privilege to you and you could literally fall asleep anywhere if you wanted to.

“It’s not that I don’t want to, I can’t in the first place,” Levi remarked. “Anyways, just do your thing-” Levi held himself back from calling you a _brat_ at the last second. He has a habit of calling cadets _brats_ because they are much younger than him and always looked so lost. For a moment he forgot that you were a grown adult with a doctor’s degree, and decided that it would be better to hold his tongue.

“Yes Captain! I’ll be asking you some questions so I can get to know more about your current condition,” you asserted, feeling your initial nervousness fade away as you switched into doctor-mode. You took out a file and a pen from your bag and flipped through the notes you had prepared last night. You also put on a pair of glasses. Levi raised his brow after seeing you put on the glasses, and silently thought about how attractive and smart you looked with it. He was tempted to lean forward and fix your glasses as he noticed it was slightly crooked.

“How many hours of sleep do you get every night?” You started. “And what time do you sleep and wake up?”

“I don’t know, probably only two or three hours. I don’t really keep track,” Levi sighed and leaned on his chair. “Maybe around 2 or 3 a.m. and then I get up at 5 a.m. for training or paperwork.” _Damn, this is worse than you thought._

“Can you tell me what you do before bedtime? Do you work or relax?”

“A mix of both. I do work because I can’t sleep and when I don’t work, I just end up lying down on my bed for hours. Sometimes I read,” Levi explained. He was slightly amused at how focused you were while you jotted down notes about his sleeping habits.

“Do you sleep with the lights on or off? Or do you have any nightlight in your room?”

Levi felt a little embarrassed to answer this question, but for the sake of his insomnia, he decided it was better to tell the truth.

“I have a nightlight,” he said with a straight face.

“I see…” you muttered to yourself as you jotted furiously. Levi felt slightly relieved you didn’t show much of a reaction to him sleeping with a nightlight on.

“Do you wake up often when you sleep?”

“Yes.”

 _Gosh, he only gets three hours of sleep a night and still wakes up in between?_ You shook your head. Levi wondered if you were silently judging him.

“I assume you take tea as your main source of caffeine. How often?” You asked.

Levi pursed his lips before answering, “Five to six cups a day?”

“Captain! That’s more than the recommended caffeine intake per day,” your mouth hung open. _He must really love his tea,_ you mused.

You asked him a couple more questions before you finally decided to ask the tough one.

“Captain, sleep disorders stem from a root cause, and I’ve concluded that yours didn’t have anything to do with your genes. Your cause seems to be psychological,” you softened your expression at him and leaned closer. Levi felt his breath hitch a little. “I know this may be difficult to talk about and that’s completely normal. But can you tell me if you’ve experienced anything in the past that particularly triggered this sleeping habit?”

Levi’s expression grew sullen. There was something about your voice and expression that made Levi’s heart ache and made him want to tell you all the frightening things he’s experienced. Maybe it was the slightly dim lighting of the office or your calming aura, that made the atmosphere rather.. _emotional_? He didn’t even know the proper word to describe this situation. It sounds crazy, because he just met you, but why does he feel like you are someone he could rely on. He didn’t want to admit it out loud, but you were a _damn_ talented therapist. And funny enough, just yesterday, you were going off about how you only study psychology in your free time. _Bullshit to that, she could easily pass as a licensed psychologist,_ Levi thought.

“You don’t have to tell me all the details, just a simple yes or no will do, along with a very brief description,” you made your voice as soft and as relaxing as possible, as you knew that getting people to discuss past traumas was never easy. But you needed answers if you wanted Levi to get better. You know that as a Survey Corps member, he definitely must have experienced nightmarish moments, but you needed to know what exactly the trigger was.

After a few seconds of silence, Levi sighed, “I did. I lost important people in my life a few years ago, they were like family to me.”

You felt sadness after hearing this. It was a bit vague, but you assumed they were people he must have really cared about. Behind that apathetic and tough expression, you just know that he was hiding a lot hurt, pain, and traumatic memories. You’ve seen this same expression in some of your patients, and during your research as well.

“I’ve always had bad sleeping habits as a child, probably an average of six hours. Let’s just say I didn’t grow up in very good conditions. But it hit the hardest when that incident happened, and that was probably when I started having sleeping problems,” he continued, finally giving in to you. His expression had softened, and he looked like he was in deep thought.

You felt a twitch in your hand and without thinking, you reached your hand out across the desk.

Those sad eyes.

That was all you could think about at that moment.

You couldn’t take it anymore and before you knew it,

you had placed your hand on top of his.


	3. Routine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg I didn't expect anyone to read my story but thank you so much for reading! I love reading all your comments and it makes me want to write more!

**Chapter 3 - Routine**

Something warm and soft brushed against the top of Levi’s hand, snapping him out of his dark thoughts. He looked up and felt his breath hitch a little the moment he realized that it was your hand on top of his.

With wide eyes, he looked at you and your apologetic expression, lips pressed together and eyes staring vacantly at his hands. A tingling sensation made its way to his head, chest, stomach, everything, and bursting into rapid thumping and overwhelming him. This feeling was too foreign for him and he tensed up immediately, causing you to snap out of the moment as well. When the sudden realization of what you just did washed over you, you retracted your hand abruptly as if you just touched a boiling kettle.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” you stifled, feeling your cheeks grow hot. “It’s a habit of mine. I do this a lot when comforting my patients.” _I want to die._ You cringed inwardly. _What I was thinking, holding the Captain’s hand like that? He’s not some terminally ill, old woman who needs comforting – he’s Humanity’s Strongest for God’s sake!_

When you heard no response from Levi and saw him staring blankly at you, you scrambled for more words, “I did that on instinct, I swear! I didn’t mean to-“

“It’s fine,” he managed to croak out, the leftovers of the tingling sensation still dancing on top of his hand. “Do you want some tea?” he asked as he stood up from his desk.

“Huh?”

\--

You finally calmed down after the embarrassing episode and now you’re drinking chamomile tea with the Captain. You weren’t sure if you were hallucinating, or if you really saw a reddish hue across the Captain’s face and ears. You didn’t really catch it though, as he quickly turned away from you to brew the tea. You noticed the Captain was holding his teacup weird. He held on to the rims of the cup instead of the handle and you wondered if he knew how to actually hold a teacup properly or if he just likes it that way. You didn’t bother to ask as you were afraid to offend him, so you quickly moved on to a different topic and started discussing your solutions to Levi to treat his disorder. You concluded that the main source of his terrible sleep cycle stemmed from psychological trauma, which eventually grew into a habit that was difficult to reverse – but habits are _not impossible_ to reverse.

You proposed that he limit his daily tea intake, and to opt for tea with less caffeine content once the time goes beyond 4 p.m. You also suggested that he avoided work before bedtime, sleep without his nightlight, try aromatherapy, and do some basic breathing and relaxation techniques.

“The key is to trick your body into thinking you’re ready to sleep, even when your mind thinks otherwise,” you explained. “I also know some things about cognitive behavioral therapy to treat insomnia, but I’ll have to study more on that first.”

“You study even until now? I thought you graduated,” Levi raised a brow. You notice that he does that a lot.

“Of course, us doctors never stop studying. There’s just too much to learn,” you smiled at him. Levi grew more and more impressed of your character every minute. Not only were you adept at your profession, but you were humble and diligent too. He would never admit it out loud, but he had actually been enjoying this whole therapy session with you.

“It definitely won’t be easy, so I prescribed you some melatonin pills. They’re basically sleep hormones, take one every night before you sleep about two hours before bed,” you handed him a bottle of the pills and he reached out to take it. Levi felt his hand brush lightly against yours when he took it, and he nearly dropped the whole bottle in the process. _Get yourself together dammit,_ he thought.

“You can stop taking the pills once your sleep cycle starts to return to a normal pattern,” you continued.

“I’m fine with everything except the avoiding work before bedtime part,” Levi remarked. “My paperwork won’t get itself done.”

“Do you really have to work on it for the whole day?”

“I have to supervise training and go over scouting formation plans with Erwin in the daytime.”

“Then I can help you!”

“What?”

“When I started my residency, I did a lot of admin work. You know, the usual, seniors passing over all the manual labour to the new doctors. So, I think I can manage yours!” you said cheerfully.

Levi furrowed his brows. If you helped out with his paperwork, not only will it lighten his load and increase the chances of him getting proper rest, but he would also get to spend more time with you- _no, no, why does the last part even matter?_

“Not a bad suggestion. If you have free time you can stop by my office and help out,” Levi noted after a moment’s reflection.

“I’m planning to help out in the medical ward after my trainings, so it’ll be pretty late by the time I stop by. But that’s actually a great idea, cause then I can supervise your pre-bedtime routine.”

 _You are quite the workaholic too,_ he thought and wondered how you have so much energy left at this time of the day.

“I think that’s basically all for today, I compiled a report for you too with all the treatments I proposed, in case you forget,” you handed him a neatly filed report and Levi was more than impressed. “I’ll be heading back now.”

 _Already?_ He thought. But you were already setting your teacup down and packing up your bag.

“Thank you for being cooperative and sharing your past troubles with me, it was a pleasure being able to treat you, Captain Levi!” you saluted him and grinned. _You didn’t have to be so formal_ , he thought to himself and wished you dropped the formalities around him.

“Thanks for the help,” he said as he stood up to escort you to the door.

“Goodnight Captain, have a good rest,” you gave him one last smile before you left through the door. He felt the same strange, tingling feeling once again. Levi caught your scent as you brushed past him – a soft and faint scent that reminded him of freshly done laundry and flowers on a sunny field. He closed the door behind him and sighed, and looked over at the melatonin pills and report you left behind for him.

\--

The next day, Levi woke up to the chirping of birds outside his window. He sat up and checked the time. _6 hours of sleep._ _Those melatonin pills sure knocked me out,_ he thought. He didn’t feel the usual tension under his eyes and the heaviness of his head.

After getting ready for the day, he headed for the dining hall for breakfast, which was already crowded with cadets and Survey Corps members. He spotted you in the dining hall with Eren and Jean, you were already laughing away this early in the morning, as if your world had no worries. _What did Eren and Jean say that made you laugh like that?_ Levi saw you look towards his direction and he turned his head away immediately, pretending to look at a porridge-hued meal some other cadet was eating. He thought about how he usually would’ve glared right back if he caught a cadet looking at him.

Levi didn’t get to talk to you for the rest of the day. You were caught up with intensive ODM training all morning, and you were sitting with the two new male Military Doctor recruits at lunch, to Levi’s dismay. _Nikola_ and _Marnie_ , or whatever their name was. In the afternoon, you practiced your swordsman skills by hacking away repeatedly at dummies. You were so focused on your training that you didn’t notice him looking over training area. As a Captain, he was proud that you were so focused that you couldn’t even see him standing like three meters away, but on a personal level, he found himself a little disappointed. During dinner time, you were back with Eren, Armin, and Mikasa, and afterwards, you had already disappeared to the medical ward to help tend to cadets’ injuries. The male soldiers in the ward seemed a lot more boisterous and playful today, Levi noted. That was the effect you had on the guys here. You’re attractive, what did he expect.

Soon, it was already 10 p.m, and Levi wondered if you were ever going to stop by his office. _Tch, why does it matter if she doesn’t show up anyway-_

“Captain? Can I come in?” Levi heard a familiar muffled voice through his door. In a mild panic, he quickly tossed his black tea into the bin before letting you in. _Crap, he forgot that he wasn’t supposed to drink tea with strong caffeine content this late at night._

“So, did you sleep well Captain?” you asked as you made yourself comfortable on his chair. You had your glasses on again, he noticed.

“Surprisingly, I did,” Levi said. “Thanks to the pills.”

“How many hours?”

“6?”

You clapped your hands in excitement, “That’s a lot better than I expected! So, tell me how you feel this morning.”

“Less tired.”

“And..?”

“More awake.”

“Wow thanks, very helpful,” you rolled your eyes. That was the first you made somewhat of a joke with the Captain, and it was a strange but satisfying feeling.

“Maybe you’re right, I felt like I was on my 80% today. My head felt less heavy too,” he muttered.

“That’s more like it,” you smirked and suddenly paused. “Did you just.. drink black tea?” You asked as your gaze fell on his teacup. You noticed the aroma of black tea and wondered if the Captain had been drinking it this late at night. His silence and the way he was scraping away bits of black tea leaves off his desk answered your question.

“Captain!” you slumped your shoulders down.

“Force of habit,” he muttered. _Was that supposed to be an apology?_

“Anyways, let me help you with your paperwork Captain, so you can rest earlier,” you said.

Levi showed you around his cabinets and drawers filled with different files. He showed you one of the things that he needs to do, which involves approving letters of recommendations from the cadets and compiling their records in the military. You wasted no time in reorganizing his work and doing the paperwork. As you bowed your head down to write on the paper, he took proper notice of your handwriting for the first time.

“Oi oi, make sure you write something that people can actually read,” he remarked and furrowed his eyebrows at your scribbly handwriting that looked like a bunch of chaotic loops.

“Force of habit,” you repeated his words. “Sorry! This is how us doctors write, I’ll change it up.”

He leaned over you to make sure you were doing the paperwork right, and in the process, he noticed a fresh red cut on the side of your neck. Without realizing, he leaned down to take a closer look and brushed his hand against your neck. You shivered in surprised and turned around when suddenly, you found yourself only inches away from Captain Levi’s face. _WHAT IN THE WORLD_ , your head screamed, but a small squeak was what escaped your lips. He must have been surprised too, as his eyes widened as well, and he backed away.

“What happened to your neck?” he asked as if nothing happened.

“Oh! I think I got a cut from the swords,” you rubbed your hand around your neck and laughed bashfully. “I’m not very good at controlling my movements yet so I probably swung too hard and hit my own neck.” At any other cadet, Levi probably would called them an _idiot brat_ and made them train harder. But with you, he was stuck in between holding back laughter and feeling bad for you. It was still dumb though.

“I’m not dumb I swear,” you looked up at him. “The closest thing I’ve held to a sword all my life was a scalpel! And it’s really weird to hold something so similar yet so different.”

“Ha? That doesn’t make any sense,” Levi mused at your strange ramblings.

“They're both basically knives! Like with scalpels you have to be so gentle and precise – one wrong move and you’re fried. But with swords it’s like, rough and crazy and you’re just swinging it everywhere,” you said as you gave the Captain a demonstration by swinging your arms around randomly.

“That’s because you don’t know what you’re doing, that’s why you’re swinging it everywhere.” Levi muttered and you feigned a hurt expression.

“After a while, you’ll realize it’s not so different actually,” Levi explained. “Even with swords you have to be precise, and one wrong move can literally fry or kill you.”

"Maybe you can teach me how to be good with swords in return for teaching you how to sleep," you joked. But frankly, Levi liked that idea and kept it in mind. You spent the next half an hour or so sorting out his paperwork effortlessly. When you were done, he escorted you to the door and opened it for you again. Levi felt the same tingly feeling when you brushed past him to leave the room. Finally he got the chance to talk to you after a whole day of watching you be busy.

For the next couple of days, this was your routine. Training in the daytime, medical ward in the evenings, and paperwork and therapy with Levi at night. You liked this routine, even though your body hurt like hell every single day from the trainings. You also got to know Niko and Mario better these few days. Niko is a chill person and Mario was like a 15-year old in a 20-something year old’s body, and you enjoyed talking to them about military life and doctor stuff. You also miraculously managed to avoid Johanne the past few days. Or perhaps, you spoke too soon.

One afternoon after your training, you caught sight of Johanne and Captain Levi in the dining hall, and Johanne was leaning in a little _too close_ to the Captain…


	4. Prey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all, I'm going to start off this chapter by addressing an issue that my friend brought up to me! My friend told me that there is a writer who mentioned about another story that is similar to hers. The writer didn't mention who it was, but just in case she was referring to me, I'm going to address it, because I read through her story and it does have a similar idea to mine (reader is a survey corps doctor and is treating Levi). And just a gut feeling too!
> 
> The writer is iamtinabug, and if you are reading this and if I was the person you were referring to, first of all, I just want to thank you for bringing this issue up and addressing it in a mature way, I apologise for not catching it sooner :(
> 
> Second of all, I'd like to clarify some things regarding the main idea of the story. A few years ago when I started watching AOT, I always wanted to create a fanfiction with the main idea of the reader being a doctor in the universe. However, I never got the courage to start writing a fanfiction about it until recently, when I started rewatching AOT. I remember scrolling through random fanfictions about a month ago, and I think I came across your story when it was first published! I only read through the first 1 or 2 chapters and got reminded of my old idea, and it did inspire me to start writing my own story :) However, as I was only randomly scrolling, I never bookmarked your story, I couldn't remember your story title or username. I would've definitely gave you credit if I remembered!
> 
> Third, I just read through your story and don't worry, I already made a plot outline and it is quite different, including the reader's backstory and future events. I do agree that an overlap is inevitable and I did get inspired to write after reading your story, but I think some parts overlapped by coincidence as well! Although our overarching idea is similar (reader is a doctor and is treating levi), others parts are quite different :)
> 
> Lastly, I just want to say that your story is really amazing so far and I hope you keep writing :) Thanks for flagging this issue to me and I'll credit you in my story since technically, you did inspire me! :) I'll also make sure to keep track of your story so that I won't accidentally write mine too similar to yours!
> 
> To my readers, do check out iamtinabug because her story is really great! Also, sorry for the shorter chapter :( I stopped writing immediately as I wanted to address this issue as soon as possible! Thank you for supporting me and I hope you'll keep reading <3

**Chapter 4 – Prey**

You have no idea what kind of business Johanne would have with the Captain, and frankly, you don’t even want to know. Johanne was seated right across the captain on the table, yapping away and leaning forward unnecessarily. Captain Levi had his signature monotonous expression on, and Johanne seemed a little too excited to be talking to him.

You tried your best to ignore Johanne like she wasn’t there, because you know that she was the type of person who relished in watching people’s reactions for the sake of it. You just wanted to get your dinner, eat in peace, and get the hell away from her. _Just my luck,_ you thought, after realizing that the two of them just had to sit on a table right next to the serving station where you needed to get your food from.

You maintained a toneless face and walked up to the serving station. Like a lion eyeing its predator, you could feel Johanne’s eyes on your back as you passed by. You caught snippets of their conversation (although it was mostly Johanne talking) and you heard something along the lines of “treatment” and something about her being the top doctor in Wall Sina or whatever. _I call bullshit_ , you sneered in your head.

You collected your food at the serving counter and turned around to find a table to sit down, still keeping Johanne and Captain Levi out of your peripheral. To get to your table, you had to pass by Johanne who was on your left, and it seems like she was still busy talking to the Captain. You continued ignoring them with your toneless expression.

But you see, when lions hunt their prey, they stalk them at first. The lion hides, and eventually as its prey approaches, that’s when the lion makes its move — mauling at the unsuspecting prey. And you see, you were so focused on ignoring that you failed to notice Johanne’s devilish gaze as you were about to brush past her, your tray of food still in your hands. You failed to notice Johanne standing up at the last second. You failed to notice her chair that she bumped backwards as she stood up, and the chair abruptly sliding right in front of you. By the time you noticed the chair in front of you, it was already too late.

You collided with Johanne’s chair.

There was a loud thump from the impact of your body colliding with the chair, followed by the crashing of your tray on the ground, and the splattering of food all over the floor and _on you_. Then, there was another loud crash as your body hit the ground.

You were almost too stunned to react or even move. Of course, everyone in the dining hall heard the loud crash and now all eyes were on you. Levi caught the whole spectacle, too stunned to react as well. He saw you crouching down, clothes nearly drenched with the porridge-like food and bits of potato clinging to your hair and jacket.

“Oh my god! I am so so sorry, Y/N!” Johanne reacted and turned around to gasp at you. “I didn’t know you were right behind me!”

Your mind was still in a panic, and at that moment you weren’t sure if Johanne really bumped into you by accident, or on purpose. Even if she did bump into you purposely, you made a split-second deduction that now is not a good timing to fight back, not with everyone watching including Captain Levi and other superiors. It took you a grandiose amount of willpower to hold yourself back from throwing your tray at her stupid, sinister face, but you were wiser than that.

“It’s fine,” you muttered, still looking down. You felt your face growing hot and prickly with embarrassment.

Levi couldn’t watch you like this and suddenly stood up to help you. _Screw it if the other cadets think I’m playing favorites,_ he thought. It’s not something he would normally do but he felt terrible seeing you sprawled on the floor like that. As he was just about to take another step, a blond male cadet came running from a nearby table and to you. Levi hesitated and stopped.

“Y/N! Are you alright?” You looked up and was surprised to find Mario in front of you, grabbing your arm and helping you up.

“I-I’m fine,” you smiled it off like it wasn’t a big deal, feeling relieved that someone had come to your rescue. You were also fully aware that Captain Levi saw you fall, and that made you want to disappear into thin air.

Levi watched as Mario brushed the food bits off your hair and held your hand to help you up. _If only I reacted a second faster_ , Levi gripped his fist. He sat back down as he watched Mario leave the dining hall with you. Levi looked at Johanne, who was already back to sitting down in front of him, looking at you walk away nonchalantly. With his sharp eyes, he caught a faint smirk tugging on Johanne’s lips.

As Mario led you away from the dining hall, you felt your blood boil. You knew Johanne hated your guts but you didn’t expect her to stoop this low. It was such a childish move, what is this, some teenage high school drama? We’re grown adults for God’s sake, and she pulled such a petty move, and for what? Was this what she meant when she said she was here to have fun?

Mario helped you clean up the food bits and accompanied you as you walked back to your room to get changed. “I saw what she did! She totally pushed her chair to you!” Mario fumed as both of you walked back to the dining hall. You remained silent, still trying to process what just happened.

“I knew something was off about her the moment I met her. She seemed to be a _huge fan_ of you too,” Mario rolled his eyes.

“What do you mean?” you asked. “Did she say something about me?”

“She totally did, to both Niko and me. It was only our first day here, and she told us that she actually knew you from before and said something about how you weren’t really a good doctor and you’re only here for attention. Don’t tell her I said this though!”

You didn’t know whether to laugh or grit your teeth in anger. “Of course, I didn’t believe her,” Mario scoffed. “You literally ranked first in the medical exams, and you made it here in the first place, so there was no way you weren’t a good doctor. She also sort of tried to make us avoid you, by telling us that you’re too arrogant to talk to ‘lower-ranking doctors’ and something about how you’ve been doing favors for Captain Levi.”

_“What?”_

You raised a brow at this statement. _So, not only is this witch trying to make people avoid me, but she has been spreading some damn rumors too? Who else did she poison with her words? And why is she so concerned about ruining my reputation?_ The day Johanne stepped foot into the Survey Corps Headquarters, you’ve already made your mind to avoid her like the plague. But she’s taking it a little _too far_ isn’t she?

“I don’t know what she meant about the favors with Captain Levi and I don’t trust a word she says anyway, but she does makes it sound like something scandalous and I’m just worried about how this is going to affect you,” Mario explained and looked at you empathetically. _Why did she have to bring Captain Levi into this?_

“I’m only helping him out with his admin work, I don’t know why she’s making such a big deal out of this.”

“She’s been acting weird lately, trying to get close to Captain Levi and all,” Mario sneered. “Oh! I kind of heard what Johanne and the Captain were talking about earlier. She bragged about how she’s the best in ODM out of all the Military Doctor recruits and hinted about a promotion, and becoming the Captain’s personal medic?”

“Captain Levi’s personal medic?” You felt a sudden and unexplainable a sick feeling rising up your gut. The thought of Johanne tending to Captain Levi’s injuries and sticking by him all the time made you agitated and nauseous. _Tch,_ i _t’s not like I have feelings for him anyway_ , you furrowed your eyebrows, surprised at your own strange thoughts. _Then why do I feel so restless?_

When you reached the dining hall, it was mostly empty already.

“Y/N!” A familiar voice called out to you. You and Mario looked up to see Eren, Mikasa, Jean, and Armin approaching you.

“We heard you fell down during dinner earlier, what happened?” Eren asked.

“She didn’t fall, she got _pushed_ by Johanne,” Mario said.

“Ha? Who the hell is Johanne?” Jean raised a brow.

“That red-haired witch! The other Military Doctor recruit,” Mario said defensively. “She’s such a bitch to Y/N. Hey that rhymed!” You shook your head at the blond’s childish nature, but found it amusing. He acted like a little brother who got a little overprotective of his big sister.

“Johanne pushed you? Are you hurt?” Mikasa inquired, a slightly worried expression on her face. Mikasa took a liking to you and has been really nice to you as you often took care of Eren’s injuries very quickly, and you were always there to reassure Mikasa whenever she was worried.

“It’s fine, just a bruise on my knee,” you rested your hand on her shoulder.

“Why would she push you though?” Armin questioned.

“I don’t know, but I think Johanne met Y/N before they came here and she hates her or something,” Mario said.

“Whatever happens, we got your back Y/N!” Eren encouraged you.

“Yeah, I remember who Johanne is now, I remember her always trying to show off during the trainings. I’ve always had a bad feeling about her,” Jean muttered.

“We’re not going to let her have her way,” Mikasa nodded at you.

You felt a warm feeling inside your chest, and your eyes were starting to water a little. When you first enlisted in the Survey Corps, you would be more than grateful with just one or two close friends. But now, seeing the way they all gathered around you, smiling and reassuring you, you had a feeling that everything was going to be alright.

You suddenly didn’t feel so alone anymore.


	5. Repaying The Favour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys I have good news! So I cleared up the issue with the other author and fortunately, it turns out that I wasn't the one she was referring to! Apparently, there is another author out there copying her story and making a story very similar to hers. Anyways, I hope that gets resolved and that she gets the credit that she deserves, and I'm also glad that I spoke up about to her because now I can give her inspiration credit as well :)
> 
> Thank you for the wonderful comments and for staying with me and my story <3

**Chapter 5 - Repaying the Favour**

That night, you felt a little anxious to enter Levi’s office. You knew that he saw you fall in the dining hall earlier and you felt embarrassed to be seen by the Captain in that way. You mustered up courage and knocked on his door. He is still your patient after all. Not long after you knocked, he opened the door and let you in.

“Captain! How has your sleep been lately?” You asked, trying to force a lively and cheerful tone.

“Great. 6 hours again last night,” he replied. Your forced tone did not escape Levi. Although he appeared as someone who couldn’t care less about anything, he was always a sharp one when it comes to observing body language and micro-expressions. You made your way to his desk and sit down across him as usual and began asking about his sleep progress.

“Still using lavender for your aromatherapy? And how are the breathing exercises helping out?”

“Yeah, both are working fine for me.”

You jotted down notes fervently. His dark circles are getting slightly better and it’s great that the melatonin pills are knocking him out. You can’t help but think about the incident earlier, and you had a lot of pent-up questions waiting at the tip of your tongue. _Why was he with Johanne? What was he talking about? Why did he just stand there and not help me up at all?_

You tensed up unconsciously as you realized how absurd your thoughts were getting. _Gah, who am I to expect that Captain Levi Ackerman would even bother to help me up._ He wasn’t obliged to do anything, who were you to think that way? _It’s just that, sometimes it seems like he cares and then suddenly.._

“Oi, what are you writing?” Levi remarked, snapping you out of your thoughts. You gasped and realized that you’ve written past the guiding lines on your notebook and now your notes looked like a mess.

“Oh, sometimes I get so lost in my notes that I write off-grid!” You tried laugh it off. Levi definitely noticed that something was bothering you, and it must be the incident with Johanne earlier. Levi wanted to ask if you were alright, and he wanted to tell you why he didn’t help you up. _It was because I hesitated when I saw Mario,_ that was what he wanted to say. But at the same time, he wondered if he should even be explaining himself to you. Maybe you weren’t bothered about that after all, and why would you be anyway?

“I think you can stop taking the melatonin pills in the next few days, since your circadian rhythm is starting to stabilize. You’ve been doing great with avoiding drinking tea and doing work before bedtime too!” You continued. “Do you still wake up at night?”

Levi looked up at the ceiling to think. “Sometimes,” he responded.

“Nightmares?” You asked and Levi replied with a _hmm_.

There was a short moment of silence as you scribbled down a few more items and Levi just watched you, arms crossed.

“Did you hurt yourself?"

“Huh?” You looked from your notes, surprised by Levi’s sudden question.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Levi repeated himself, thinking you didn’t hear what he said. You heard him perfectly the first time, you just weren’t sure how to respond.

“N-No.” You answered briefly and broke eye contact with him. You pretended to be busy with your notes.

“Are you sure? You fell pretty hard earlier.”

You nearly dropped your pen at the abruptness of his words. _That is one straightforward guy._

“Yes, I’m sure! I’m used to falling with the ODM gear anyway!” you tried to laugh it off again. Levi noticed you had a habit of laughing off things that clearly bothered you. Levi suddenly got up from his chair and your eyes widened when you realized that he was walking towards you. And now he was standing right in front of you.

“Captain, what are you- “

Before you could finish your sentence, he held your left wrist and lifted it up. Your sleeve slipped down and revealed a fresh bruise on the side of your wrist, you must’ve gotten it from trying to break the fall earlier.

“Are you sure?” he repeated himself again. _Geez, he’s really not beating around the bush_.

You blushed, but you weren’t sure if you were blushing because the Captain was standing so close to you or if you were just plain embarrassed from the fall. You looked away and avoided eye contact once again. Levi loosened his grip on your wrist and let it fall gently back to your lap. Levi turned around and walked away from you. You felt a slight tugging on your chest and somehow felt, disappointed?

_That’s it? He was just going to look at my injury like that?_

You silently scolded yourself once again for thinking that way again. _Who am I to expect such things?_ You continued to flip through your notes absent-mindedly.

Suddenly, Levi grabbed your wrist and lifted it up again, and you gasped in surprise. You were so focused on your notes that you didn’t see him walking back to you earlier.

You felt something cold on your wrist, making your skin tingle and shiver. He was lathering on some sort of gel on the bruise. _Is_ _he.. trying to tend to my injury?_

“Captain?”

“It’s a healing ointment I always use for my injuries,” Levi replied with his usual calm and cold tone.

“Captain, you don’t have to!” you blurted, feeling flustered at this unexpected reaction.

“Don’t think too much of it. I’m just repaying the favour since you helped me with my disorder,” he replied, still rubbing the gel on your wrist. You felt bad if you refused, so you let him. You felt a sharp pain on your wrist when he pressed his finger on a certain area and winced.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, and he suddenly pulled his finger away, his gaze softening.

“A little bit.”

This time, Levi lightened the force he applied to your bruise, and rubbed the gel much more gently. He was standing so close to you that you caught his scent properly for the first time. He had a clean, masculine scent – a combination of faintly scented soap, and something else that you didn’t know how to describe, was it jasmine?

You looked up at him, his bangs falling to the sides of his forehead and framing his small, sculpted face. His achromatic eyes were steady and focused on your injured wrist. You noticed for the first time, how calloused his fingers actually are. Most likely from several years of training, you thought. Despite that, he was still extremely gentle with his touch, carefully rubbing the gel on your bruise. Captain Levi was known to be rude and apathetic, and you couldn’t believe that this was same man who wouldn’t hesitate to kick loud and obnoxious cadets in the stomach.

 _I guess he does kind of care after all._ You couldn’t believe that at this very moment, the infamous, stoic Captain Levi Ackerman was holding on to your wrist and applying healing gel on you.

\--

“Thank you Captain, you really didn’t have to,” you smiled warmly at him.

“Don’t mention it,” Levi answered. “Didn’t you fall on your knee too?”

“Oh! I got it treated already, I stopped by the medical ward earlier for some meds,” you reassured him.

You then asked him a couple more questions about his progress, and then moved on to sorting out some paperwork with him. You and Levi were standing beside the bookshelf, filing recommendation letters together while having small talk about your training.

“What is it with you and Johanne?” Levi suddenly popped the question.

“Honestly, I don’t know either. She was always a _bitch_ to me,” you replied without thinking. “Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to swear!” You let out a little gasp after realizing you swore in front of the Captain.

“You don’t have to be so polite around me,” Levi sighed. “And what do you mean by always?”

“I mean, from our past. We used to go to the same medical school, but worked in different hospitals after that,” you shrugged.

Levi recalled the first time he opened up your application file before you were recruited.

\--

He was in Erwin’s office, Erwin wanted to hear his thoughts on the new Military Doctor candidates. Levi had opened Johanne’s folder first.

 _Johanne Olbrich, graduated in the top 5% of her batch, ranked 2 nd place in the final medical exams. Worked in hospitals in Wall Sina, personal medic of the Kaiser family, which was apparently some super rich family in the interior. _

_2 ndplace? Not bad. _Levi thought. Your file was next, and he flipped the page.

_F/N L/N, graduated in the top 5% of her batch, ranked 1 stplace in the final medical exams. Worked in the top hospital in Wall Sina for 1 year, and numerous posts in Wall Rose. You achieved a Valedictorian award for graduating 1st, Stohess Doctor’s Merit Award, Karanese Medic Award, and a Psychology Research Award._

_1 st place. _His silver eyes glazed over your outstanding ranking and your multitude of awards. _The candidates seem quite promising, although this one seems like an over-achiever._

\--

After recalling the memory, Johanne’s relationship with you started to become clearer to Levi. She seems to be nothing more but a jealous rival. _Or there could be more to it_ , but he thought it would be best not to pry too much. That was also when Levi realized that he actually knew nothing about where you came from and what you were doing here. There wasn’t much on your report besides the usual technical information about your grades and achievements. _But he wanted to know more than just your numbers and statistics._

“What was it like?” Levi asked. You blinked.

“What do you mean?”

“What was it like going to medical school? And being a doctor,” he continued, his eyes fixated on you.

“Erm, it was tough definitely. Studying all those years and having a lot of people depend on you to save their lives,” you fiddled with the paper in your hands. You weren’t used to talking about yourself in front of the Captain. Levi simply kept staring at you, as if waiting for you to say more.

“Erm, if you’re expecting me to share my life story with you, you’d be disappointed really. My life’s boring!” You joked, breaking the silence. _Shit. You catch on fast,_ Levi cursed mentally.

“You literally know about my sleeping habits. That information is sacred. There’s a bit of an information imbalance between us don’t you think?” Levi raised his brow.

“Okay fine!” you laughed. Levi looked satisfied. “I lived a pretty normal life I guess, I don’t exactly have a touching tragic backstory.”

“Go on,” Levi urged you. You thought about how strange yet _adorable_ it was for Levi to ask about your background. You didn’t mind sharing anyway, since you managed to grow pretty close with Captain Levi cause of all the therapy and paperwork sessions.


	6. Her Story

**Chapter 6 – Her Story**

“Well..” you sighed, thinking about where to start. “I think what inspired me to become a doctor in the first place was my grandfather. When I was young, he died of an illness, and I remember feeling really guilty for being helpless and unable to save him. There were doctors who tried to help of course, but it was too late.”

Your hand gripped on to the paper you were holding onto. “I just remember thinking that those doctors weren’t able to save him because they weren’t good enough. Of course, it could be because my grandfather’s illness was already in a dire stage and there was not much left the doctors could do. But I was just a kid and I didn’t really know that. I guess I carried that principle as I grew up, the principle of having to become the best in order to do great things. Becoming the best so that I could save others. I was always looking up, reaching for the top.”

Levi was surprised that you finally decided to open up. He listened to every word you said intently, like a child listening to a bedtime story.

“And I guess I made it. I graduated, at the top. Got to work in a first-class hospital in Sina, where the elites are always looking for the best doctors to keep for themselves. Becoming a doctor within the inner wall is a dream that many medics hoped to achieve, and I was living that dream,” you continued as you placed the last file into the bookshelf, and afterwards, you decided to take a seat on Levi’s couch nearby.

“A dream huh?” Levi asked, and followed you to the couch. He took seat on the other end of the couch and crossed his legs, still listening to you intently.

“Mhmm. Not only was residency in Wall Sina the safest option, but this pathway also grants anyone free housing in a luxurious dormitory, specially built for inner wall medics,” you glanced at him.

You told him about how you lived in a fancy unit with a large bed and tended to elite patients from rich noblemen to duchesses. You even got to eat delicious meat, drink fine wine, and even getting jewelries and bonuses as gifts from your rich patients. You had access to the prime libraries and received top-tier medical training from superiors who were also well-respected doctors. It was the crème de la crème of lifestyle, high society, and a medical career.

“And why would you ever move out?” asked Levi. It was a burning question that he always wanted to ask you from the start.

You shared about how after living in Wall Sina for a year, the rose-coloured lenses started to slip off and you suddenly felt a sense of hollowness creeping in. Perhaps it was the way the snobby elites talked about the outer wall civilians in such blatant ignorance, or the way the doctors here held their noses up so high that they refuse to treat – or even touch – regular civilians in Wall Rose. Although you never openly showed it in fear of discrimination, they truly disgusted you. As doctors alike, you all took an oath to do no harm and to treat the ill to the best of one’s ability.

“I just don’t get why they were choosing who gets to live and who doesn’t, just because of their social class?” you said, and turned to look at the flickering candle on Levi’s table. The candlelight reflected on your eyes and Levi thought they looked like a lucid blaze in a pitch-black forest.

“So, you hated the people there?” he asked.

“Not necessarily hate, I just don’t... vibe with them?”

You told him about how you did make some friends – fellow Wall Sina doctors and other elites of the same age, sons and daughters of the rich. You’ve never really had a problem with socializing, but you did realize though, that most of the times, you were putting on a fake smile. Something about the way your friends boasted about their lifestyles or remained so ignorant about the world made you feel trapped. It was always about the luxuries, the parties, or the people you know. You always had to look all dolled up and elegant, even when you’re carrying out your duties as a doctor. You also learnt the true nature of the Military Police soldiers and how corrupt they were, heightening your urge to get out of this suffocating town.

“Those corrupt military pigs. Glad that you saw through them.” Levi scoffed. _He really does seem to despise the Military Police,_ you mused.

“One year was enough for me and I finally made the puzzling decision of leaving Wall Sina and working in Wall Rose instead,” you continued. “I heard from my friends who were working there that the experience was a lot more hands-on and it was always very busy there. They could use help from a genius like me!” you joked, earning a scoff from Levi.

“A genius at falling and swallowing mud, that is,” he retorted, and you gasped, recalling how you fell and coughed up mud in the aptitude exam when you first enrolled here.

“No way, you saw that??” 

“How could I not.”

You continued your story and shared about how your parents were aghast. After all, your career as a doctor was what made it possible for them to move into Wall Sina in the first place, and now you’re moving out? You had a long talk with them and explained to them how you wanted them to remain in Wall Sina and not to worry. You worked hard to get to the top so you could give your family a better life. They were growing older and you felt relieved knowing they are at least safe and are eating well in the inner walls. Your parents respected your decision and you bid your farewells to your superiors, patients, and friends. Although none of them understood your decision, at least they didn’t hate you for it, and at least since you were a favourite doctor among the elite citizens, they would gladly welcome you back.

“Then off I went to Wall Rose, in search of a more fulfilling experience, I guess. I worked in Wall Rose as a civilian doctor for 2 years and now here I am.”

“I heard you also worked in the Underground. Is that true?” Levi asked.

“What? Where did you hear that from?” you asked and suddenly sat up from the couch.

“Overheard someone talking about it,” he said simply. You blinked and wondered how the word about that managed to spread here.

“It’s true I guess,” you said, and leaned back down on the couch. “During my time as a doctor in Wall Sina, I found out about the existence of the Underground. I couldn’t turn a blind eye to the atrocities down there, many were suffering from basic diseases and injuries too. Luckily, I had connections in the Military police, and I was able to get access down there with the excuse of purchasing supplies. No one would’ve let me in if they knew I was treating people.”

“Who did you treat?"

“Random people, whoever seemed like they needed help. I treated women, children, the elderly, anyone who was sick and needed help really,” you smiled, thinking back about your days back then.

“That’s... impressive.” Levi said, looking at you with an expression that was somewhat a mix of awe and confusion. You blushed and broke away from his gaze, not expecting that compliment from him at all.

“It’s just.. seeing the smile on their faces after they get better, or see their loved ones survive – It’s what keeps me going. I see myself in them. A small child, hoping that their loved ones will get to live for another day.”

Levi thought about his sick and frail mother on her deathbed, and him as a child cowering in the corner of the room.

Helpless, scared, and lonely.

Hearing this, he wished that you were there back then, to save his mother and him too.

How can someone like you exist? You were just so brave and kindhearted and benevolent, making your way to save some dirty, useless people in the Underground like that, expecting nothing in return. He felt his heart ache. It’s been happening a lot to him lately ever since he met you.

“And why did you enlist in the Survey Corps?” Levi asked.

“Because I’m a doctor. And saving lives is what we do right?” you smiled.

There it is again. That weird aching feeling in his heart or chest or whatever. _If only you knew the horrors of the outside world, and how quickly people died in the expeditions._

Still, he grew more and more impressed of you. Giving up all that luxury and splendour? And diving into this scary world of Titans and becoming what people would call one of those “suicidal scouts”? Levi wanted to tell you what an amazing person you are.

“But anyways, that’s my life basically. As for Johanne, she's always been like that to me.” you remarked. You didn't really feel like talking about Johanne right now.

There was a short silence afterwards, and Levi struggled to find words to say. _What should he tell you? Thanks for sharing?_ He tried to remember what you would normally say to him after he tells you things about his sleep disorder.

“Thanks for.. sharing.” Levi muttered. You held yourself back from giggling at his stiff tone.

“No worries, I like talking to you,” you replied.

_I like talking to you._

Levi wanted to drill those words to the back of his mind and remember it. You actually enjoyed talking to him and it made Levi.. pleased? He didn’t know how to describe the feeling, but it felt nice to hear that from you. He wanted to tell you that he liked talking to you too, but his pride was not letting him have it.

Meanwhile, you were itching to ask him a question, and you were unsure if it was wise to bring it up. You wanted to know what Johanne was talking to him so excitedly about. You knew from Mario that she wanted to be his personal medic, but you wanted to know _more_. But at the same time, you didn’t want to seem like a busybody, or to seem like you cared so much about it. _Screw it. He asked about me, now it’s my turn._

“What were you talking about with Johanne?” you asked, trying to act nonchalant and cool about it.

“Why do you want to know?” Levi raised a brow. Somehow, he had a feeling you were going to ask that question, and decided to tease you a bit.

“I- Why not??” You panicked and blurted out. A blush threatened to creep up your face. You didn’t want to seem like you cared about what the Captain was talking about with Johanne. Meanwhile, Levi secretly enjoyed watching your squeamish reaction.

“I’m joking. She was going off about wanting to become my personal medic.” Levi said.

“What??” You gasped, acting like you heard it for the first time. You already knew this from Mario but of course you weren’t going to tell him that.

“I told her I would think about it.”

“You what?” _Levi is really thinking of having that repulsive vermin as his personal medic?_

“But of course, I’m going to reject that proposal.”

“Huh?” Now you were confused. And also, relieved. “Why?”

“What do you mean why? I don’t need one. It would simply be an unnecessary allocation of manpower in the scouting formation.” Levi replied like it was obvious.

“Oh.” You blinked.

“And I have already you anyways.”

_???_

_What did he say?_

You weren’t sure if you were hearing things right, but you suddenly felt your stomach doing backflips and somersaults, and heat rising up your face.

 _What am I supposed to say?_ You thought. _He means as a medic right?_

_But why does he make it sound so ??_

You looked up at the Captain, who now seemed to be hiding his eyes from you under his bangs, a faint rose-colored flush on his ears.

“You should get some rest.” He suddenly said.

“Y-Yeah, I’ll be heading back.” You replied awkwardly. _He sure has a talent for pretending that nothing happened after something DEFINITELY happened._

“You should sleep now too Captain, don’t take anymore melatonin pills and let’s see how that works out.” You reminded him.

“I won’t.” Levi said as he escorted you to the door as usual.

While you walked with him to the exit, a sudden realization crossed your mind. You realized that you have never actually seen the Captain escort anyone else to the door on their way out or open the door for anyone else. You recalled the other times when cadets would enter his office. Levi would either greet them with a shallow grunt or flat-toned _come ins._ And when anyone was heading out, Levi always looked more than pleased to see them leave and to be finally left alone. You’ve never seen him move an inch from his desk to help the other cadets out, except for you.

_Is he giving me special treatment? Or is it just because I’ve been helping him with his disorder, so he’s just being nicer to me?_

“Take it light tomorrow with your training. You hurt your hand.” Levi said as he opened the door.

“Psh, I’ve had worse injuries.”

“Stop being so stubborn.” Levi muttered and watched as you walked away, still smiling at him.


	7. Stardenburdenhardenbart

**Chapter 7 – Stardenburdenhardenbart**

You had an extremely good sleep last night, which was unusual. Maybe it was because you were too drained from yesterday’s events, or maybe because Captain Levi blessed you with his healing touch. You moved your left wrist side-to-side; it felt much better, his healing ointment had worked like magic. _I wonder what was in that thing, I definitely need to check the ingredients out_ , you thought.

After a shower, you quickly got dressed. You put on a white blouse and your brown army jacket over it and combed through your hair. Finally, you pulled it into a high ponytail, letting out a few loose strands to frame your forehead and the sides of your face. It’s time for training.

Today, Instructor Keith Shadis announced that it was horseback riding day. As simple as it sounds, horseback riding is a key skill that every Survey Corps member must be trained on. Some cadets are more skilled than others, having gained experience on horseback riding during their pre-trainee days, while others struggled to even get on their horse. Luckily, you were in the former category.

The training involved riding deep into the forest and retrieving as many ribbons tied to the trees and as fast as possible. This was to train a cadet’s ability to constantly switch between using the ODM gear and maneuvering back to ride the horses to safety. When you directed your horse to the starting point, a familiar red-haired figure intercepted your line of sight.

It was Johanne Olbrich.

“Careful, you wouldn’t want to hurt yourself again now do you?” she sneered, her wicked green eyes glaring daggers at you, referencing your tragic dining hall fall yesterday.

“I hope you’re satisfied with yourself.” You simply said, expression unchanging. Then, you tugged on the reigns of your stallion and moved to a different starting point. Training was about to begin, and this one involves heavy time pressure and competition. You’re not going to let that vermin distract you if you were going to do your best. Johanne let out a growl, clearly irritated that you chose to ignore her even after she provoked you yesterday. _Who does that bitch think she is, acting all high and mighty like that,_ Johanne gritted her teeth.

You managed to retrieve 15 ribbons in total, which was considered a higher-than-average score, and returned back to the starting point with a triumphant grin on your face. You were proud of yourself for going from wobbling around in your ODM gear, to speeding through the trees effortlessly. You managed to complete the training with no injuries too. At the end, Johanne saw how you secured 15 ribbons, 5 more than what she got. Johanne went livid and stormed away from the training grounds after seeing you surrounded by the other junior cadets who praised and commended you.

“Y/N! Teach me how to be as good as you!” Mario whined, galloping on his horse out of the forest and to your direction.

“Huh? You did fine though,” you said to Mario, “Your horse seems to like you too.”

“Yeah?” Mario grinned as he climbed down his horse. “I named him Horsey!”

“Wow. So creative.” You stared at him perplexedly as you climbed down yours.

“I named mine Jean. Cause my horse’s long face reminds me of his face,” Eren said as he appeared between the two of you. You and Mario burst into laughter.

“Watch it,” Jean growled after overhearing what Eren said. “Your face reminds me of my horse’s ass.”

"What did you name your horse, Y/N?” Mario chirped.

“I named mine Jungfrau,” you said proudly.

“Finally, someone who named their horse normally!” Jean groaned. “Where did you even get the name from?”

“I read in one of my books about a huge snowy mountain somewhere in this world called Jungfrau and just thought it suited this horse's huge build.” you chuckled, rubbing the mane of your gigantic stallion. It seemed to have taken a liking to you.

“Jungfrau? That's so cool! Pun intended.” Mario giggled, and you couldn’t help but ruffle his messy blond hair.

“Why do we even have to name our horses?” Eren muttered.

“So that we can have a closer bond with them, which I don’t have yet” Mario remarked. “Y/N, my horse won’t respond to my callings, teach me how!”

Usually, horses should be trained to respond to whistles, you thought. But you were somehow in a playful and bright mood today and decided to mess around a bit.

“Oh, that’s easy. When you want to call your horse, all you have to do is yell this really loud,” you explained, feigning a serious expression.

“Yell what?” Mario’s eyes enlarged.

“STARDENBURDENHARDENBART!” you suddenly yelled, and the three boys jumped in surprise. Funnily enough, your yelling turned all of the horses’ heads and unexpectedly, they slowly walked up to you like obedient puppy dogs. Seeing this, the three boys shrieked in unison.

“WHAT??” they roared as if they discovered a new element, disbelief flashing in their wide eyes.

Somewhere, not too far away from the training grounds, Levi made some time to oversee the training as he found himself worried about your wrist injury, and horseback riding could be harsh on one’s wrist. Levi overheard the commotion, and turned his head to see what was going on. It sounded like someone was yelling. _Noisy brats, what is it this time?_

“Starden what??” Jean shrieked.

“Stardenburdenhardenbart!” you hollered again.

“I can’t believe that worked! Stardenburdenhardenbart! Stardenburdenhardenbart!” Mario yelled continuously at the top of his lungs as he ran around his horse.

Jean and Eren followed suit and now the three of them were yelling _stardenburdenhardenbart_ while running in circles, and you were laughing your lungs out. It was a random German phrase that you came up with on the spot, and it didn’t even have an actual meaning. Even you were surprised to see it work as an animal attention-catcher.

Meanwhile, Levi simply could not process the situation. He watched with a stoic face as the three male soldiers yelled something incoherent at the top of their lungs, all while circling their horses in a demonic summoning circle.

Then, there was you, laughing so hard that you fell to the ground and started rolling over. He wondered what you were laughing about and why you always looked so carefree around them. He’s never seen you laugh this hard in front of him before and felt a slight tugging feeling on his chest. Levi couldn’t even comprehend his feelings, but could this be what jealousy feels like?

 _Stupid brats, distracting your training,_ he thought. He was tempted to intervene so that you could get back to training properly. _Or did he just want those boys to stay away from you?_

Levi decided to stick around the training ground a bit to keep an eye on you all.

There was a break before your next training, so you and the boys decided to fool around a bit more. Jean wanted to try ride your horse since it was a lot tamer than his, and he wanted to prove that his horse was mean to only him. Unexpectedly, he climbed up your horse and sat down behind you, even holding on to your shoulder for balance in the process. Levi caught sight of this and felt a twitch in his eye. _What does that shithead think he’s doing?_

Jean held on to your reigns from behind, holding your hands in the process as well. Levi couldn’t believe that you looked so calm and unbothered with Jean’s hands on top of yours. _Push that shitty brat’s hand away goddammit,_ he thought. Levi recalled the way you flinched and looked so flustered when he unconsciously touched the cut on your neck and wondered if you were only uncomfortable around him _._

You and Jean eventually climbed down. “Jean! Let me ride yours,” you said.

To Levi’s horror, Mario and Eren yowled “OOOs” suggestively while Jean smirked at you as you blushed and freaked out at the sudden realization of the implication behind your words. Their reactions made Levi want to kick them in the stomach. _That’s it._

Before he even knew it, he was walking towards the lot of you.

“Oi, _brats_. You’re too loud. Quit fooling around, this isn’t a playground,” Levi snapped, his eyes stone cold and arms folded as he stood in front of the four of you. Catching Levi’s deadly glare, you all shuddered and stopped whatever you were doing.

“Apologies, Captain. We’ll go back to the headquarters now,” Eren said.

“You better.” Levi glowered, sending another wave of shudders through all of you. You all wondered why the Captain was in such a sour mood.

“Except you, Y/N. I need to talk to you.” Levi remarked.

“Oh, yes Captain!” You saluted him. The three boys walked away and glanced back at you, confusion in their faces. Mario looked back at you mouthed “ooo” suggestively with a playful look on his face. You shot him a glare and mouthed “what?” to Mario, and he snickered before jogging away to catch up with Jean and Eren. _I am so going to kick him later._

You turned to look at Levi, who still had his arms folded. His stony, grey eyes looked.. _stonier_ than usual. He definitely did not look pleased. _Is he mad about something?_

“What did you want to talk to me about, Captain?” You asked him.

“You really shouldn’t be playing rough with those brats like that. You just injured your wrist,” Levi asserted.

“They weren’t being rough at all! We were just cooling off after training.” You explained, feeling rather surprised by his irritated tone.

"Well they don’t know that they're being rough, you could’ve gotten hurt.”

“I’m fine, look, I even got fifteen ribbons!” You reached for a pouch on your horse, Jungfrau’s saddle, and showed off your bright red ribbons.

“I told you to take it slow today.”

You looked down, feeling rather confused. You performed well in the training, but why does Captain Levi seem so displeased about it? Levi sighed after seeing your dejected expression.

“Let me see it,” he said and reached out his hand. You realized he was referring to your left wrist.

“Okay,” you stuttered and gave him your left hand. Levi grasped your wrist gently and took a look at your bruise. You blushed wondered if this was okay, being out here in the training ground and having the Captain holding your hand like this.

“It got swollen again. Look.” Levi said, and looked at you. Indeed, your bruise on your left wrist has swollen up a little, most likely from tugging your horse’s reigns and firing your wires.

“I’ll take of it, Captain, so don’t worry about me anymore,” you smiled. “I’m a doctor, remember?”

Levi only sighed. He was just worried about your wrist and was jealous of the guys being around you earlier, but now he’s afraid of coming off as too strict or rude.

“I’ll get going now, sorry for the commotion earlier!” you apologized and tugged on Jungfrau’s reign hastily. However, your poor horse was startled from your sudden tug. It neighed loudly, and bucked. Before you even knew it, Jungfrau’s bulky lower body collided with your back, pushing you forward abruptly.

“Wha- Ahh!” you yelled from the sheer impact as your body was flung forward. Your eyes grew wide as you realized that you were being flung straight into the Captain’s direction.

His figure grew closer, and closer, and CLOSER.

_Shit!!!_

The last thing you saw was Levi’s shocked eyes before you collided into his body.

You crashed into his chest, and the force of your body ramming into his also sent him plummeting backwards into the ground. You closed your eyes and braced from the impact of crashing to the rocky and sandy ground.

However, that rocky impact never came. Instead, you crash-landed on something solid yet.. softer than you expected? You were laying on the ground, and your head was spinning from the impact.

“Argh.” You slowly used your arms to prop yourself up, but when you looked down, you realized that it was not the ground that you were laying on – but Captain Levi Ackerman.

And his face was inches away from yours.

You looked down and met Levi’s familiar silver eyes. He looked absolutely stunned, his straight eyebrows furrowed, eyes wide, and lips slightly parted. His body was pressed underneath against yours, and you could feel his.. _his_ _body heat. His muscular build. His scent._ You found yourself too stunned to react.

Levi felt like his soul just escaped his body. You were on top of him. Your bangs were falling from the sides of your face and almost touching his face. His eyes fell to your lips, they appeared so soft, only inches away from his lips. Your chest was pressed on top of his, and Levi tried to ignore the top button of your collar that had somehow popped off, revealing the curvature of your breasts. Levi felt his face growing hot and he tried to shake off the strange, lewd thoughts, but he really almost couldn’t take the implication of this particular position. _What kind of situation is this?_

You heard Jungfrau neigh again and suddenly snapped out of your trance. You pushed yourself away from Levi and got off him immediately, crouching on the ground beside him in horror.

“Captain, I-“ You started, feeling hot blood rushing up to your face and to your chest, your heart pounding like thunder. “I’m sorry!”

“It’s.. fine,” He quickly sat up too, looking flustered.

“Jungfrau suddenly bucked and I-“ you scrambled for words to say, trying to ignore the fact that you just laid on top of Captain Levi in a compromising position and almost kissed him from the fall too. _Your lips were only inches away from his too._

Levi stood up first, and held a hand out to you. You took it, and he helped you stand back up. _Your body, your warmth, your touch._ The strange thoughts started swirling in his mind again.

“Who’s Jungfrau?” Levi asked, trying to break his chain of thoughts.

“Jungfrau is my horse’s name!” You stuttered. Ah, there he goes again. Pretending like nothing happened after _something had_ happened.

“I hope you didn’t injure yourself again, let’s head back to the headquarters,” Levi said and started to walk away.

“Yes Captain!” You said, and quickly turned back to bring Jungfrau with you, this time holding the reigns more carefully. _Jungfrau you stupid horse, look what you got me into!_ “No carrots for a week,” you muttered quietly to your horse as you followed Levi from behind, who was walking quicker than usual.

“Captain, wait for me!” You called out, and tried to pull Jungfrau to catch up with him faster. You frowned and sighed when you saw that Levi quickened his pace instead. _Geez, he must be annoyed with me._

Meanwhile, Levi was busy trying to calm himself down.. and hide something that had unexpectedly grown rigid inside his pants, pressing uncomfortably on the cloth of his trousers.

He quickened his pace once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, if you got the stardenburdenhardenbart reference, huge props to you HAHA. Basically, I got this stardenburdenhardenbart thing from a viral TikTok of man yelling to cats in different languages, and somehow catching their attention with this particular phrase. It's really hilarious and great, you should watch it HAHAHA. Hope you enjoyed this chapter and the little bit of naughtyness I sneaked in at the end :P


	8. Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johanne's motives towards the reader starts to become clearer, and the reader is starting to lose patience with Johanne. Johanne's actions start to get more and more hostile, and it's becoming more and more difficult for the reader to simply ignore her deeds. How long can the reader keep up her "nice girl" facade towards Johanne? Meanwhile, Erwin initiates a sudden change of plans for the Survey Corps, and Levi isn't taking it too well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap this story reached more than 1k hits ?? THANK YOU SO MUCH. Also guys don’t mind me, just wanna rant a little here about myself :’)
> 
> Lately I’ve been feeling all jumbled up cause there’s a lot of things on my plate, mostly cause of schoolwork and other things. Writing this story has become some form of escape for me and a way to express my creative / artistic side that I’ve been neglecting for a long time. And when I’m feeling down and I see your comments, I can promise you that my mood gets lifted up by 101%. 
> 
> It’s just.. it hits different when you get a compliment about your writing style / talent / skill compared to getting a compliment on your looks / beauty. When I read your comments about how much you enjoy my writing style or story, I feel so emotional and touched, whereas when someone compliments my looks I feel meh cause it doesn’t say much about my character and loses meaning over time :( I guess it’s because your comments makes me feel appreciated as a creator and makes me feel like I have impacted or inspired someone :’)
> 
> I’m constantly checking for new comments and writing new stuff for this story, cause that’s how excited I am to see your feedback! <3 Anyways, that’s my rant, thanks once again and enjoy this chapter!

**Chapter 8 - Confrontation**

When you returned to the headquarters, you watched as Levi strolled straight back into his office. Once he reached his room, he took in a deep breath to recover from the episode. _What the hell just happened?_ He remembered seeing you getting knocked over by your huge horse, and then falling. He still couldn’t believe that you actually fell on top of him. His mind started to wander again, and he shook his head. He has never felt like this before and it genuinely freaked him out a little.

Meanwhile, you remained in the dining hall and wondered why he was in such a hurry. There was still some time left before your next training, so you decided to chill in the dining hall a bit. You were sipping on a glass of cold water when Mario plopped on the seat next to you, his curious hazel eyes looking at you playfully. “So.. what was that about?” he asked, referring to when Levi asked you to stay behind earlier.

“He told me to take it slow with the training cause I hurt my wrist,” you explained.

“Someone seems worried about you!” He cooed. “Meanwhile, I literally crashed into a tree yesterday and he didn’t even bat an eyelash.”

“He probably didn’t see you cause you’re short.”

“I’m like 10 centimeters taller than the Captain! And besides- Oh my god, Y/N!” Mario suddenly gasped and looked away from you abruptly.

“What?”

“Your button!” He half-whispered, half-shouted. You looked down and you gasped when you saw the top buttons of your collar had come off, revealing some skin around your chest.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier??” You blushed and hastily buttoned them back up.

“I just saw it, what did you do with the Captain?!” Mario gasped. “Are you done buttoning yet??”

“It’s not what you think! And yes, I’m done!”

Mario turned around to look at you again. “And why are you covered in dirt, look!” He pointed to the sand and dirt on your clothing. You quickly dusted them off.

“Come on, spill the tea!” Mario said in a high-pitched girly voice.

“There is no tea! My horse pushed me and I fell on Captain Levi!” You blushed furiously and pushed Mario’s head.

“Your horse.. pushed you?” He asked in a baffled tone. “Never mind that, you actually fell on top of the Captain Levi?”

“Y-Ya.”

Mario suddenly gasped and started slapping your arm frantically. “I bet he freaked out! Don’t tell anyone, but I kinda have a feeling that the Captain is soft for you,” he whispered.

“Tch, what makes you even think that? I’ve embarrassed myself enough in front of him,” you grumbled. “And don’t tell anyone I fell on him.”

“My lips are sealed.” Mario cooed and pinky promised you, you locked your pinkies together. You felt like children, keeping silly little secrets together. “You like him, don’t you?”

You felt your heart rate quicken at the question. You hesitated for an answer and blanked out.

“I don’t blame you, he _is_ hot.” Mario shrugged. “Not that I like him though. I still like girls okay.”

“It’s not like that! I just think he’s.. interesting.” You pushed Mario’s head away again.

“Well, you have been spending quite a lot of time with him. You go to his office every night for paperwork or something right?” Mario asked.

“Erm, yeah.” You still couldn’t tell anyone that you were treating Levi’s sleeping disorder, because Erwin wanted it to be kept confidential. Some cadets were aware that you’ve been visiting Levi’s office often because they have seen you in the hallways and whatnot. However, they just assumed you were there for helping out with paperwork, as no one would ever suspect that Humanity’s Strongest soldier would have any chronic medical issues.

“Besides, I’ve never been in an actual relationship before, so I don’t really know how I’m supposed to feel like,” you muttered.

“We’ll see about that. Anyways, let me grab some bandages for your wrist from the ward, it looks swollen. Be right back,” Mario said and left the table.

“Oh, thanks!” You shouted after him. Then, you took in a deep breath. ‘ _You like him, don’t you?’_ Mario’s words rang in your ears. _Liking Captain Levi? That’s crazy, why would I like him?_

An uncomfortable presence suddenly disrupted your thoughts, making your skin crawl. You looked up immediately, and sure enough, there was someone standing right next to you. You found yourself face-to-face with not just Johanne Olbrich, but four other girls standing behind her. You looked up and stared at them in confusion. _Why are they ganging up on me now? Johanne really won’t give me a break, huh._

You’ve seen those girls hanging around Johanne just like bees swarming around their queen. They were always sitting together in the dining hall, teaming up during the trainings, and loitering outside the dorms gossiping at night. The literal embodiment of a mean girl group.

“Get up.” Johanne said. You chose to act disinterested and simply looked away, continuing to sip on your glass of water. From many years of personal experience, you’ve learnt that ignoring Johanne was one of the best ways to deal with her.

“She said get up!” A hazel-headed one growled. You ignored her again.

Suddenly a hand swiped through your glass, knocking it out of your hands until it fell on the floor with a shrill crash. _What the hell?_ You glared at them.

“Do we have your attention now?” A blonde one smirked, twirling her pigtails with her finger. Tch, they always act like they're the popular pretty girls that all the male soldiers obsess over. Sometimes you’d see them acting up around the guys and you’d wonder if you were really in the military, or back in high school. Someone’s got to tell them one day that it’s Krista Lenz that the guys obsess over, not them, you thought.

Unknowingly to you though, _you_ were also included as one of the pretty girls that the male soldiers often obsess over. The five girls knew that too, and it made them tick.

You stood up abruptly from your seat and faced the five girls. Not a single sign of fear showed in your face, just plain annoyance and disgust. Seeing how bold and unafraid you were, Johanne’s nerve twitched. _You were supposed to be intimidated._

“You’re coming with us.” Another blonde girl said, her arms crossed.

“Where? We’re literally in the middle of training.” You rolled your eyes and turned around to leave the dining hall. You had no time for some girl drama. But they weren’t letting you have it. You felt a hand roughly grab onto your left wrist, which was swollen, and you gasped in pain. You looked back to see Johanne grabbing your wrist tightly, like a vicious cobra squeezing a rodent with its tail.

“I said you’re coming with us, you filthy pig. You’ve got guts to ignore me earlier.” Johanne growled. Multiple scenarios played through your head. You knew you were much more skilled than any of these girls individually in hand-to-hand combat, you could try to take them down. However, they outnumbered you and could easily pin you down and disable you, and besides, your left wrist was still injured. You are clearly at a disadvantage. Breaking out into a full-blown gang fight here was also not a smart idea, you all could get your punished for misconduct. Second, you could try to talk things out here. And lastly, you could comply and follow their orders, but that would most likely lead to them possibly beating you up and following them would mean giving up to them. And you are never ever going to let yourself fall to Johanne. _What should you do?_

You decided to go for the second option.

“Why are you doing this?” You asked, starting to lose patience.

“Just because, you disgust me,” she answered.

“What? Cause I scored higher than you in the training earlier?” you scoffed. _Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to say that, but Johanne is really taking this too far. It was getting difficult to continue ignoring Johanne._

“You better watch what you say.” Johanne’s grip tightened around your wrist and you held back from showing pain.

“You’re doing this because you’re jealous of me.” You snatched your wrist away from Johanne despite the throbbing pain, and Johanne flinched a little. _This isn’t good, I’m losing my cool,_ you thought.

“Hah, jealous? As if. I’m doing this because all you’ve been doing is cheat your way through!” Johanne barked back. “And dirty cheaters like you need to be taught a lesson or two.”

“Yeah, Johanne said you cheated in the medical exams and got in here by bribing the registration officers,” the blond one shot you a dirty look. _Cheat? Bribe? Are they insane?_

“You don’t deserve to be here! You used your connections from Sina to become a Survey Corps doctor,” said a black-haired one. _What?_

“And now you’re flirting with Captain Levi to climb your ranks. What a slut!” The blond one pushed your shoulder and you stumbled backwards a little.

“When will you change, Johanne?” You shook your head. She did the exact same thing back then in medical school, spreading terrible lies about your qualifications and skills. You'd be lying if you said that those words didn't hurt you. _Is this really what Johanne thought about me all this time?_ “Spreading lies won’t get you anywhere.”

“They’re not lies, but the truth.”

“And you made up these lies because you can’t accept that I achieved all these things on my own.”

“You bitch!” Johanne growled and took several steps to you. “You’re going to fucking pay!”

Apparently, that must have been some kind of signal because now, all the girls were closing in on you. Your eyes grew wide and you stepped backwards. _Is it really happening? Are we really going to break into a fight here?_ Your thoughts raced on what to do next.

“You’re coming with us.” The blonde one snarled and reached out to grab your wrist again. Panic rose up your throat and you couldn’t think to react quick enough.

“She’s not going anywhere, you witch!” A familiar boyish voice called out, and you looked up to see Mario seizing the blonde’s wrist with his own hand.

“Don’t fucking interfere, this is none of your business!” Johanne snarled. _She almost had you._

“And you have no business to interfere with our friend either.” Another voice called out from behind you. You turned around and your eyes widened in shock. _It was Eren. And Jean. Mikasa. Armin._

“What do you think you’re doing, Johanne?” Jean approached the group of girls, indignation in his eyes.

“First you push her, and now you want to gang up on her and beat her up??” Eren snarled and stomped forward. Eren, Jean, Mario, Armin, and Mikasa stepped forward to stand beside you, facing the five girls together. Mikasa shot them a cold-blooded glare, fists clenched as if ready to pummel them ten feet underground.

Johanne gulped, and so did the other girls. _Shit._ _I didn’t expect her to get so friendly with this one hell of a group,_ Johanne thought and gritted her teeth. She scanned the group and assessed the situation. First there’s Eren, the hostile one. Second, Jean’s much taller and bigger build was already intimidating enough to the girls. Next, Mario is one of the best in evasion techniques. Armin, the genius. And then there’s fucking Mikasa, literally the top in the class. In an actual fight, there’s no way Johanne and her gang would win.

“Fuck you Y/N! You manipulative bitch,” Johanne shrieked to you before storming away from the dining hall with her girls. You all watched until they all disappeared back into the training grounds.

“Y/N, are you alright?” Eren asked, and you nodded.

“I can’t believe she’s still picking on you.” Jean clenched his fists.

“Thanks guys, for being here for me,” you smiled at them apologetically.

“That’s what friends do, we protect each other,” Mario smiled.

“I told you, we’ve got your back,” Eren nodded.

The group of people who you had been closest to ever since you arrived here, they really are here for you. Although they were much younger than you, they’ve developed a lot of respect and admiration for you as a Military Doctor. They’ve not only grown closer to you as a comrade to look up to, but also as a friend. And it upset them to see you getting harassed like this for no reason. Mario helped you with bandaging your wrist, and the six of you returned to training together.

You felt a mixture of gratefulness, and yet also guilt. You were grateful that they would be there for you in a blink of an eye, and that you had such supportive friends, but you were also guilty that you kept dragging them into your own mess.

\--

Meanwhile in Levi’s office, he had finally calmed himself down and felt normal again after running through a bunch of paperwork. He then decided to go to Erwin’s office for office matters and to distract himself as well.

“Ah, Levi. I was just going to look for you.” Erwin said when he saw Levi enter.

“What for?” Levi grumbled. Levi’s eyes darted to the left and saw Hange Zoe in Erwin’s office too. She was busy reading some kind of document.

“I think you’ll need to sit down for this.” Erwin said.

And so he did. Erwin had a serious expression on his face and Levi had a feeling that this was not going to be a one of their lighthearted tea chats.

“I’m going to go straight into it,” Erwin started. “We need to go on our expedition much sooner. Most likely within the next few days.”

“Why?” Levi raised a brow, although he felt rather unsurprised. Erwin has always been rather unpredictable when it came to battle strategies.

“The wall guards have noticed some unusual Titan activity outside the walls, Hange and I were just discussing about this and we think it’s best to check it out for ourselves. And besides, we also need to complete that base in the forest we’ve been trying to establish for months.” Erwin continued.

“The base as in, that hut inside the Titan forest?” Levi asked.

“Yes, we need to stock it up with gas supplies and weapons. That base is crucial for our future expeditions and for our survival.” Hange explained, looking up from her document.

“Exactly. It will be just be a minor resupplying and scouting expedition. I would like to take this chance to bring our new Military Doctors with us too.” Erwin stated. Levi felt his chest tighten a little.

“All of them? But they’re not ready.” Levi said.

“Not all, just the two best ones out of the four recruits. It’s a good chance to see how effective this Military Doctor initiative is, this expedition could be somewhat like a trial run.” Erwin explained, looking proud of his decision. “Who knows, we could recruit more doctors if this turns out to be successful.”

 _Two best ones._ Levi already knew who those two were going to be and he did not want to hear Erwin say it.

“Y/N and Mario are the top performing ones according to Keith Shadis.” Erwin concluded. Levi’s chest tightened a little more after hearing your name. _Trial run?_ _They’re not some pawns that you can just experiment with however you want._

“I don’t think they are ready, they can’t fight Titans yet. Let’s wait for the next expedition.” Levi remarked, his steely grey eyes staring at Erwin with disapproval.

“Levi. If we keep waiting until an even bigger disaster strikes, they’ll never be ready. Ever since the battle in Trost and discovering Eren’s Titan ability, we’ll never know what will happen next. Besides, it’s a minor expedition, it’s the perfect time for them to gain experience.” Erwin replied with a firm tone.

“You’re not usually like this, is there someone you’re worried about?” Hange raised a brow and smiled at Levi. Levi tensed up at the realization. It’s true. Usually when Erwin announces his plans for expeditions, Levi couldn’t really care less. He’d nod along and occasionally give an input or two about the scouting formation, but he has never argued about it like this before.

“Of course not. Just making sure those two doctors will be useful to us.” Levi retorted.

“Don’t worry. We’ve also heard that Y/N and Mario have pretty good chemistry, their teamwork and trust in each other will definitely help them out.” Erwin said. “Gather your squad, they’ll be coming with us too.”

“And how about those new Survey Corps brats from the 104thcadet corps?” Levi asked, referring to Eren, Mikasa, Armin, and the rest.

“Them too. We’ll make the announcement tomorrow.” Erwin instructed.

 _I can’t believe this is happening,_ Levi thought. He wondered about how you will react to this sudden change of plans.


	9. Closed Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin announces his plans for the expedition to the Survey Corps members, and the reader meets the Special Ops squad for the first time. The reader is confronted with a mix of different emotions of her own, and her patience with a certain vermin is starting to thin.

**Chapter 9 – Closed off**

When you woke up for training today, you received an unexpected announcement from Instructor Keith Shadis to gather in a meeting room for an emergency briefing. _What could it be about?_

When you entered the room, you found several members of the Survey Corps already inside. You recognized Eren, Mikasa, Jean, Armin, Sasha, Connie, Krista, Ymir, Reiner, and Berthold from the 104th cadet corps. You saw Commander Erwin seated at the front of the meeting room along with Captain Levi, and a brown-haired woman with glasses, whom you’ve never seen before. There were other members of the Survey Corps, people you’ve never seen before either. You spotted Mario among the soldiers and went to sit down next to him. You wondered why the other two Military Doctors, Niko and Johanne, were not called in here.

Levi watched as you entered the room, looking slightly confused and lost. This was your first official expedition meeting with the Survey Corps, and he wondered if you were feeling nervous. He just hoped you won’t freak out when Erwin makes the announcement.

The meeting started not long after that, with Erwin announcing the expedition’s new date. A multitude of reactions and responses filled the room, with many being confused and startled. Everyone had been expecting the expedition, it’s just that they didn’t expect it to happen so soon. _An expedition tomorrow?_ You gulped and looked at Mario, who also looked back at you nervously.

Erwin began explaining the reason for moving the expedition so soon. “This time, it will be different. We will have our newly minted Survey Corps Military Doctors joining us this expedition. Everyone, this is Y/N and Mario, they are top medical professionals and have been training with us for some time.” Erwin said and pointed a hand in you and Mario’s direction. You gulped again as you everyone’s eyes fell on you.

“Pleasure to work with you all!” You and Mario said simultaneously and saluted.

Erwin then moved on to discuss the plan and scouting formation. Because you and Mario were still new, both of you are to be situated in the middle of the long-range scouting formation. The plan was to minimize direct combat with any Titans, and the new formation was arranged in a way that could bring injured soldiers to you and Mario. You and Mario will be travelling on your own horses beside another soldier who will be transporting a cart, and that cart will be where injured soldiers are tended to. Besides the ODM gear and sword shafts, you will also be carrying a first-aid kit attached to your body in a backpack. This was to ensure that in case the medical supplies in the cart are destroyed or gone, you will at least have supplies of your own. _Gosh, as if the sword shafts aren’t already heavy enough on its own,_ you thought.

Hearing the formation plans, Levi breathed a small sigh of relief, knowing that at least you were in one of the safest areas of the formation and will be well-protected by the elite soldiers all around you. Throughout the rest of the meeting, he kept looking at you, scanning for any signs of nervousness or distress. Surprisingly though, you looked perfectly calm and you seemed to be taking in the information pretty well.

Suddenly, Levi felt a dull throb in his head. _Ugh_.

This was the consequence of barely being able to sleep last night. After the talk with Erwin about the expedition yesterday, Levi found himself worrying about you, and this disrupted his sleeping pattern.

\--

The meeting ended after a while, and you exited the meeting room with Mario.

“I didn’t expect us to leave so soon,” Mario said to you, finally showing his anxiety after keeping it to himself in the meeting.

“Me neither. But don’t worry, I think we’ve gotten pretty good with the ODM gear.” You looked at him reassuringly.

You looked over to see Erwin involved in a deep discussion with Armin, Eren, and Mikasa, most likely about how to make use of Eren’s titan ability.

“Oi.” A familiar voice called out and you looked up to see Levi. He looked rather tired this morning, and you wondered if it was the effect of not taking any more melatonin pills. _I’ll ask him about it later._

“Morning Captain,” you and Mario greeted him.

“I’ll be introducing you to my squad, since you’ll be positioned near them in the long-range scouting formation,” Levi started, and four figures emerged behind him.

“Guys, these are the Military Doctors, F/N L/N and Mario Mueller,” Levi gestured the four to you and Mario. “And doctors, this is the Special Operations Squad, Eld Jinn, Oluo Bozado, Petra Ral, and Gunther Schultz.”

You all saluted and greeted each other. _I can’t believe I’ll be working with the elite Survey Corps Special Ops Squad,_ you thought to yourself. You heard that these people were specially handpicked by Captain Levi, and had a titan kill record of over 200. They were also known as _Squad Levi._ It felt rather intimidating to be working with such elite soldiers with far more battle experience, but you greeted them in your usual friendly and cheerful manner.

“You’re really cool, I can’t believe the Survey Corps has official Military Doctors now!” Petra, the red-haired girl, chimed at you. She seems like a really friendly person, and compared to the others, she’s the most approachable one.

“Thank you! It really is a pleasure to even be in the same mission as you all. I’m still quite new to this whole soldier thing,” you smiled and rubbed your head.

“Don’t worry young lady, I’ll be there to protect you!” Oluo gushed while Petra cringed at him. You noticed Oluo had a rather familiar.. hairstyle? It kind of looked like Captain Levi’s but a shabbier version of it. _No offence, Oluo._

“Ugh, don’t mind him. He always acts weird around pretty girls,” Petra rolled her eyes. Levi’s eye twitched at Oluo.

“Oluo’s right, you don’t have to worry. We’ll be at the center of the formation along with you two and Eren,” Gunther smiled.

You smiled back when suddenly, you heard strange sniffing noises right next to you. You turned around to find a tall, muscular, blond-haired man trying to smell you.

“What are you doing?!” You squeaked and backed away in panic.

“Miche, you’ve got to quit that habit.” Petra smacked her forehead. “Ah, this is Miche Zacharius by the way, he’s the section commander of Squad Miche. He has a bizarre habit of smelling people, don’t mind him.”

“Ahah.. I see.” You blinked and looked at him uncomfortably as he continued sniffing you. _The Special Ops squad looks cool and all, but the people were rather.. strange._

“Enough, Miche. You’re scaring the doctors,” Levi muttered and shoved Miche away from you. It somehow irked Levi to see Miche getting so close to you and he had the sudden urge to get him away from you.

“Nice to meet you,” Miche shook your hand and you greeted him back.

“He seems to.. like your smell.” Oluo raised a brow at you. _Yeah, definitely strange._

You continued to have a chat with the Special Ops squad to get to know them better. Levi seems satisfied that you were able to get along with his squad pretty well in your first meeting.

\--

For lunch, the Special Ops squad invited you and Mario to sit together with them, as according to Petra, it was important to have a bonding session before the expedition. She claims that bonding sessions actually improve synchronization and teamwork, and as a psychologist, you thought it was a valid point.

Mario was excitedly yapping away with Oluo, and Oluo himself seems rather intrigued by Mario’s strange and disgusting medical stories. _Not for the faint of heart,_ you thought. You rolled your eyes and turned your head to the other side of the table, where you saw Petra chatting enthusiastically with Captain Levi. You didn’t really notice it before, but there was something about the way she looked at him and the way she talked to him, that made you uncomfortable. You might have been imagining it, but her eyes were almost like they were sparkling.

 _I mean, Petra is a friendly person in general,_ you thought and tried to shake it off. _But she doesn’t talk this excitedly with other guys though._

Maybe it made you uncomfortable because of how familiar this behaviour is. Familiar because, you also look and talk to the Captain in a rather similar way – as if the rest of the world was drowned out, and it’s just the two of you.

 _Petra and Captain Levi sure look close_ , you thought to yourself and looked down at the table. Of course, she was specially handpicked by him after all. He must have seen something amazing in her, and she must have really impressed him. They must have gone through a lot together too. _What is this uncomfortable feeling?_ You surmised, and wonder if you were feeling.. jealous? You wanted to ignore them, yet you couldn’t stop yourself from looking at them again and again. You tried to capture bits and pieces of their conversation; it was something about Petra’s father wanting to get to know Levi. _What?_ Why would her father want to meet Captain Levi in person?

Suddenly, your thoughts were interrupted when an arm flung itself around your shoulder. You gasped and turned around to see the brown-haired glasses woman grinning at you. _Section Commander Hange Zoe, known for her strange antics and erratic behaviour._  
  
“Y/N! I heard you’re a research psychologist, I’d love to have you join me in my experiments!” She chimed. You suddenly noticed how the atmosphere of the table changed, and how the Special Ops squad is now looking at Hange anxiously.

“What kind of experiments?” You asked.

“Oi, cut it out!” Oluo whispered to you. _Huh?_

“You really want to know more?” Hange grinned with a rather crazed look. Levi twitched his nose. _I should’ve warned her about Hange,_ he thought.

“Um, why not-“ Before you could finish your sentence, you felt a hand grab onto your sleeve.

“’Don’t get her started,” Levi muttered, dragging you away.

“Huh?” You looked at him and stumbled away from the table as the others breathed a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, Petra kept eyeing you as Levi brought you away.

Levi dragged you pretty far away from the table so that Hange couldn’t hear him. “I’m not sure if you know, but you really don’t want to get caught up Hange’s rants,” he said.

“She just wants to tell me more about her experiments though?” you looked at him cluelessly. As weird as she is, you could tell that she was a genius. You could tell this from the way she spoke and presented her analyses in the meeting earlier.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” Levi muttered. “Anyways, about the expedition, you’re.. alright with the plan?” He had been worried about how you were going to take it, since it was quite sudden.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect it to happen tomorrow, but I’m ready!” You smiled at him.

“You’re not.. scared?” he raised a brow.

“Of course I’m scared!” You said like it was obvious.

“You don’t look scared though,” Levi noted.

“Ah, it might be my habit. As doctors, we’re trained to always appear as calm as possible even if we feel like screaming on the inside,” you explained to him and chuckled. “Cause if we show fear or panic, then imagine how our patients feel.”

Levi simply mused about how mature you are handling this. Usually, new cadets would already be freaking out at the announcement of an expedition.

“Besides, I’ve always wanted to see what the outside world is like, even though it might be scary,” you continued.“Anyways Captain, how’s your sleep going? I noticed you looked a bit tired today.”

“I barely slept.” He grumbled.

“Having bad withdrawals from the melatonin pills?”

“No. I just had a lot on my mind.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He was suddenly tempted to tell you to not to go for the expedition, but what right does he have to command you to stay behind? Erwin would never let that happen either. _But she should be fine, right? She’s in the center part of the formation, the safest position. And I should be somewhere around there to protect her too._

“No. It’s nothing.” Levi sighed.

“I see..” You said. You had a feeling Levi was keeping something from you. There was a short silence between the two of you for a moment, and you decided to bring up something you’ve been wanting to know more about.

“You seem really close to your squad,” you started. “Especially Petra.”

 _Shit, I don’t even know why I mentioned that last part,_ you cringed.

“They’re alright.” Levi answered, wondering why you brought up Petra out of all of them. Meanwhile, you were unsatisfied with his short, vague answer.

“Oh! How did you meet them or bonded with them?” You asked again while smiling.

“Through training I guess.”

“I see..” You forced a smile, feeling slightly irked at yet another vague answer, and how Levi didn’t seem willing to share more about himself or his circle.

“I’ve got to go for training, see you later Captain,” you said then turned to leave for the training grounds. You were hoping to lead him into telling you more about how he got to know his squad, how close he is with them, or just about him in general. After all that you spilled about your background story and personal life, you somehow felt annoyed that he didn’t bother to share back. You also remembered how he seemed to answer Petra’s questions so naturally at the dining table earlier, and now it made a nerve beside your eyebrow twitch.

Mario saw you leaving the dining hall and rushed after you, like a lost puppy following its mother.

“Y/N, wait for me!” He called out.

As Levi watched you and Mario leave the dining hall, he somehow felt like something was off, yet he did not know what. He returned to his table and sipped on his tea once again.

\--

Despite the expedition happening tomorrow, you still had to do regular training to keep in shape. Today, as a warm-up, Keith Shadis instructed you all to get into position for a quick hand-to-hand combat session. He assigned everyone a partner, and you wanted to curse the universe when you saw a familiar red-haired figure standing on your assigned spot.

 _Johanne fucking Olbrich_ is your sparring partner.

Out of all the girls and boys in this cohort, you just had to be partnered with that _vermin_. You tensed up immediately and tried to calm yourself down. You still remembered what she did you to you yesterday, clear as day.

Her straight, vermillion red hair was tied into a slick high ponytail, no loose or messy strands in sight. She turned around, and you found her green, serpent-like eyes staring straight at you.

_Oh boy, it’s going to be another long day._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Closed Off, I wanted to show how the reader is starting to realize that she has feelings for Levi because of the way she feels when she sees Petra interacting with him. The reader is basically starting to acknowledge her feelings for the Captain. I also wanted to show how the reader is starting to learn about Levi's closed off nature and how she realizes how little she actually knows about him. The reader realizes that Levi isn't willing to share a lot about himself, but doesn't know yet that this is because he had gone through a lot of past trauma and prefers to keep his feelings to himself.


	10. Nice Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A time bomb ticks within the reader, and Johanne was treading on dangerous grounds. The reader has finally had enough of her bullshit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys sorry for the late update! I had a lot of stuff going on for school this week including a bunch of presentations and readings, so I wasn't able to write until the weekend. Here's a longer chapter in return :) By the way, credits to one of my readers, Carla, for the word "cantankerous" HAHA. I love that vocab.

**Chapter 10 – Nice Girl**

You looked around the training grounds to distract yourself, because you absolutely could not stand seeing Johanne’s crusty, cantankerous face. You spotted Mario near your assigned spot. He was warming up, about to spar with Connie. Mario saw your assigned partner and looked at you with worry flashing in his hazel brown eyes.

 _‘You gonna be okay?’_ He mouthed to you from a distance. You smiled and gave him a thumbs up. He pointed two fingers to his eyes and then pointed it to Johanne’s direction, as if saying ‘ _I’m watching her’._ You wanted to giggle. He really is looking out for you, and you thought about how he gives off such a sweet little brother vibe.

_\--_

Keith Shadis gave the command to begin the hand-to-hand combat session. To win and score a point, you need to knock the other opponent down and disable them. You didn’t speak a word to Johanne as you warmed up on your own and got your position ready. Both of you are now in your fighting stance, ready to strike at any given time.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, right? Your seduction technique with Captain Levi actually worked, and now you’re the one going on the expedition?” Johanne scoffed.

Seems like Johanne already found out that she wasn’t chosen for the expedition, and she was definitely _not_ happy. _Geez, what happened to girls supporting girls?_

“They chose us based on our performance.” You remarked. _Stay calm._

“Performance in bribery and seduction, that is.” She said. “You should watch your back, because I’m going to expose you.”

“And you should watch your mouth.” You retorted. You were still irked from the incident with Levi earlier which already put you in a bad mood, and Johanne’s _bitchiness_ was not helping.

\--

Levi knew that the first training for today was hand-to-hand combat, and he remembered about your injured wrist. After lunch, he told Erwin he was going to ‘ _supervise those noisy brats’_ , but really, that was just a lame excuse he came up with so that he could see you. As soon as he spotted your familiar figure, he grew worried when he saw the person standing across you. _Johanne Olbrich is her sparring partner?_ He recalled that time when Johanne pushed you in the dining hall, and he even overheard that she ganged up on you yesterday from a couple of gossiping trainees. He stayed around your vicinity – just in case.

\--

“What?” Johanne clenched her fists harder.

“Watch your dirty mouth.”

As soon as those words left your mouth, a fist flew straight towards your direction. Your eyes widened in alarm, and you rapidly swung your body out of the fist’s way, barely missing it by a mere inch. Johanne had made her first move, but she got a little too hasty.

As Johanne staggered forward from the momentum of missing the punch, in a split second, you took advantage of her exposed back. You intercepted the blow and quickly grabbed hold of Johanne’s arm, twisting it and bringing it behind her. You brought your knee on her back, sending Johanne straight to the ground with a loud thud. Johanne turned her head and looked up at you, startled and angry. You gazed back down at her with a blank and icy stare, your knee still on her back.

Meanwhile, Levi’s eyes widened a little after watching you pull that move on Johanne. It was a simple counterattack to a punch, but you somehow pulled that off effortlessly. Levi was impressed by how you managed to master that move so fast. _Seems like she might not need my help after all,_ he thought.

As Johanne’s face started to grow hot from anger, she shrieked and broke free from your grip, and is now back to a fighting stance. You sighed.

“Look, I know you have a problem with me, whether you’re jealous of me or you just can’t stand me in general, I don’t care. We’re doctors in the Survey Corps, we’re here to save lives. Let’s just stop this and mind our own lives.” You tried to sound as mature and as calm as possible, as always.

“Fuck you, you cheated your way here to play hero.” Johanne threw another punch. _Her moves are predictable._ You dodged it easily and rammed a fist to her stomach while you’re at it. Johanne grunted and took a few steps back.

“See, this is the difference between you and me, Johanne.” You moved closer. “You’re so ill-natured that when others try to do something good, you misinterpret their actions and see the bad side instead. I came in here with the intention of saving lives and becoming the best person that I can as a doctor. But you? You’re only here to drag me to hell, isn’t that right?”

“You fucking _slut_ ,” Johanne seethed and stood back up, her eyes hateful and menacing. You hate it when Johanne threw vicious profanities at you like it meant nothing. _I’m not done yet._

“While I was busy working my ass off, you’re busy trying to bring me down, and that’s why you could never reach the top,” you said in an eerily monotonous voice. “You can’t stand seeing me do better than you, and that must be why you hate me so much. I feel sorry that you have such a toxic inferiority complex.”

Johanne felt her face growing hotter and hotter with rage. You weren’t spouting out random profanities or curse words at Johanne, you were spouting out the truth. Your words hit home and Johanne knew that, and that’s what makes her so deliriously angry. Johanne charged at you with a kick this time, and you brought your leg up at the same time too. When her leg was about to make impact with the swing, you kicked her shin downwards. It was a move used to disable kickers and throw them off-balance. Sure enough, Johanne stumbled and fell once again.

Johanne couldn’t understand it. For years, everyone was always crazy about you. You were always first in the class, first in everything, and everyone loved you for it. You received all the praise, the fame, the glory. Growing up, Johanne would always get anything she wanted and was terribly spoiled. But then, you came along and suddenly, the world didn’t revolve around Johanne anymore – and this made her furious to the point of insanity.

“There’s no way someone as shitty and as stupid as you could make it the Survey Corps, or even the top hospital in Sina, or even graduate in 1st place!” Johanne glared up at you. You felt a painful twinge in your chest. There was a ticking time bomb inside of you and Johanne was treading on dangerous grounds.

_Shut up Johanne._

“You’re not here to save lives or fight for humanity, enough with that bullshit! You’re here to play hero so that everyone will praise and raise you on a pedestal. You’re doing this for your own fucking selfish, narcissistic needs!” Johanne shrieked. Heat started rising up your face.

_Stop it._

“YOU TOOK EVERYTHING AWAY FROM ME!” Johanne shrieked and to your shock, she swung her hand and slapped your face, hard.

There was a loud clap when her hand made impact on your cheek and after that, silence. You felt stinging pain on your cheek and ringing in your ears.

Her shrieking drew the attention of a couple of cadets sparring nearby, including Levi. Mario was one of them too, and he could already tell this was not going to end well. He stopped sparring with Connie and looked over to check on you. _What is going on?_ He thought. _Why is Johanne yelling?_ He saw that you were just standing there, motionless. He feared that whatever Johanne just said just broke you, and he took a few steps closer to search for signs that you were alright. Instead, when he caught your face, shivers ran down his spine.

The usual glint in your eyes have faded, and now, your pupils were vacant and dim. Your expression was almost dead.

“I took everything away from you?” You spoke in a low voice.

And suddenly, you laughed.

You kept on laughing, shoulders shaking uncontrollably, like a person who has gone half-insane.

Levi stared at you, eyes widening slightly. He did not know how to react.

All this time, you’ve been tolerating Johanne and playing the nice girl. The nice girl who greets everyone with a smile, the nice girl who is all grown up and mature, the nice girl who is so perfect and gentle and polite. The time bomb inside you stopped ticking, and you didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.

But you do know, that at this moment, that nice girl was gone. Enough is enough.

“I took everything away from you?” You laughed again. “Tell me you’re joking, Johanne.” She remained silent as she watched you wipe away a couple of tears from the laughing episode.

“After all those years you bullied and harassed me in medical school? Don’t fucking joke with me!” You yelled with a crazed smile on your face.

You took a few steps closer to Johanne, still high from your laughter. “And then you followed me here so you could harass me some more, discredit my achievements, ruin my life just because you don’t like losing, then now you tell me that I took everything from you? Get a life!”

“You’re a crazy bitch!” Johanne shrieked, and took a step back.

You stopped laughing, and your expression turned monotonous. You stared at her with blank eyes.

“Maybe I am.”

And suddenly, your leg was in the air.

You didn’t even realize you had moved and before you knew it, you felt a powerful force as your leg made impact with Johanne’s head.

There was a loud, dull thud and a crack, and Johanne’s head collided with the ground. Red hot liquid dripped out from her forehead and into the ground.

“WHAT THE FUCK, Y/N!” Johanne screeched as she brought her hand to cover the running blood.

“Don’t say my name with that filthy mouth of yours.” You muttered and grabbed her collar before ramming a clean, linear punch to her jaw. Another loud crack.

_Not yet._

With wide eyes, you grabbed her hair this time with force, and rammed your fist on her cheek. Johanne’s body went limp.

_More._

You stood up and swung your leg, kicking her straight in the stomach. At this point, she is no longer moving.

 _More._

You pulled back your arm, ready to launch another punch to her face. When suddenly, you felt strong arms grab you from behind, restraining your arms.

“Y/N, that’s enough.”

You were snapped out from your raging episode. When you turned around, you met Levi’s grey eyes, which had an uneasy expression that you had never seen before. You unclenched your fists, and as your body started to relax, you didn’t realize how tense and highly-strung it was.

When you looked up, your breath hitched, and your eyes widened. You had beaten up Johanne, and now she was unconscious on the ground, blood dripping out from her head profusely.

“Captain..” you started, even though you had no idea what to say next. You’ve never beaten up anyone before, let alone pulverize them to the point of unconsciousness. Your breathing started to shake at the realization of what you had done. It was a combat training session, _but still._

“Johanne!” A blonde girl shrieked and ran over to Johanne’s unconscious body, it was one of the girls who ganged up on you yesterday.

You felt your body tremble, anxiety starting to crawl all over your skin. You didn’t know what to do. Something sick started rising up from your stomach and to your throat, and you were afraid that you were going to throw up. And so, you fled.

You dashed away from the scene – from Johanne, from Levi, from the training ground. As you ran, you heard some shouting in the background that sounded like muffled noises. Maybe it was the blonde girl screaming at you, or Levi, or maybe it was Keith Shadis yelling at you to come back. But at this moment, you didn’t care. You just needed to escape.

Eventually, you ran far away enough from the training grounds and ended up in a nearby forest where it was quiet and empty. You collapsed to your knees to catch up on your breath.

_What have I done?_

\--

Levi quickly alerted Keith Shadis, and Johanne was taken to the infirmary.

“I mean this is impressive, but Y/N didn’t have to go _this far_ for just a training session,” Keith Shadis commented.

“We’ll need that fighting spirit in the Survey Corps,” Levi bullshitted. He saw everything but of course he wasn’t going to snitch on you losing control. 

“Olbrich’s not the first to have gone unconscious in combat training. This is quite normal,” Shadis remarked. “First one to get so beaten up this badly though.”

Levi sighed internally, relieved that you were not going to face any repercussions. Luckily the fight happened during a hand-to-hand combat training session, so it was shrugged off. The rest of the training continued as per usual without you and Johanne. Levi wondered where you ran off to.

\--

You managed to calm yourself down and gather your thoughts. Somehow, it was like something had taken over you earlier and unleashed something deep inside of you that you never even knew existed. It was dark, sickening, and _terrifying._

You remembered seeing Levi in the training grounds. _How did he end up there? And why did he have to be there out of all times?_

You brought your knees close to your chest and buried your head into your folded arms. You felt embarrassed and somehow scared. You’ve never acted like this in front of anyone before, why did he have to be the first to witness this dark side of you?

_Damn everything._

You tried so hard to give your best impressions to everyone, and especially to him. You tried so hard to be that mature, professional, and kind-hearted doctor that everyone looks up to and everyone loves. You wanted that image to be your only image, and now it has been shattered to a million, irreparable pieces. You can’t believe this is happening right before an expedition too.

You wondered if Levi felt disgusted towards you, seeing you lash out and beat up someone like an animal. _Like a monster._ You were here to fight Titans, why are you fighting a human?

_Why did I do that? Why couldn’t I control myself?_

You were spiraling out of control with your thoughts, your anxiety making your breaths shallower and shallower. _You wanted to cry._

“Oi.”

\--

Your eyes flashed open at the familiar voice. You looked up to the source and saw Captain Levi towering over you.

Your eyes widened in horror. _I’m going to get punished, aren’t I?_

Without saying a word, you abruptly got up and ran away. You don’t even know why you decided to run, but at this point, you don’t even care.

“Hah?”

Levi stared at you dumbfoundedly as you scampered away like a mouse. _What is she doing?_

You ran, and ran, and ran.

You heard rustling in the trees, and when you looked behind, you saw that Levi has disappeared. _Where the hell did he go?_

When you turned to face front again, you got the shock of your life as you saw Levi standing just a couple of meters in front of you. You let out a little scream and stopped running abruptly, afraid to crash into him like last time. You took a couple of steps back, only to feel your back bump into a large tree behind you. And suddenly, before you were about to take another dash, strong and muscular arms were rammed beside both sides of your face.

You yelped in surprise when you saw Levi right in front of you, his arms planted on the tree behind you and cornering you against it. You had nowhere to run. Your back was against a tree and Humanity’s Strongest Soldier was trapping you in between his arms.

You could feel Levi’s breathing on your neck, and your heart was palpitating to the point where you feel like it was going to drop to your gut. A drop of sweat ran down the side of Levi’s face.

“Did you really think you could outrun me?” Levi muttered, his eyes fixated on you.

“N-no,” you squeaked, heart still pounding like thunder. _This is it, I’m going to get expelled from the Survey Corps._ “Captain, please don’t expel me!”

“Expel? You think this is a school?” Levi scoffed. Your actions were so different from earlier on, and Levi thought your skittishness was borderline adorable. You went from a stoic, martial arts badass and now you’re acting like a ditzy little girl.

“No, of course not! I apologize for my actions, I deserve to get punished!” You continued rambling, your face starting to flush. Levi felt like he just saw three different sides of you today, and he was very amused.

Levi raised a brow at your statement, and started to take a few steps closer to you. You gulped nervously and shut your eyes, preparing for the worst. You couldn’t take it, Levi was just too close to you and you were actually terrified of getting expelled from the military.

Suddenly, you felt a warm hand resting on top of your head.

_Huh?_

You opened your eyes to see Levi patting your head and ruffling your hair. His steely grey eyes ironically looked warm and empathetic towards you, and the inner corners of his eyebrows were drawn slightly upwards.

“No one is going to punish you,” Levi sighed in a soft voice. “Calm down, will you?”

You relaxed after seeing Levi’s expression.

_\--_

You and Levi sat down on the grass, your backs resting against the large tree. You kept your head down, still shaken up from the events. He assured you that no one else saw the fight except for a few nearby cadets, and made sure to keep them quiet about it. Levi decided that you should take the rest of the training off to calm down and rest, despite you insisting that you were fine. It’s a big day tomorrow and he didn’t want you to get any more unnecessary stress.

“Why did you chase after me?” You asked him in a quiet voice.

“I was making sure that you don’t abandon us right before an expedition,” Levi answered.

“Sorry for the trouble, Captain.” You looked down again in guilt. Levi felt an ache in his chest.

“That, and making sure that you’re alright,” he added and felt his cheeks grow a little warm. “I don’t want my personal doctor to run off crying and go missing in the woods.” He added, still unwilling to admit that he went straight to look for you from pure worry.

“I didn’t cry! Anyways.. I didn’t mean to do that, Captain,” you said to him. “Beating up Johanne, that is.”

“Luckily this happened during a combat training session, so Shadis brushed it off as part of the training,” Levi remarked.

“Are you.. disgusted by me?” you asked without thinking. You didn’t know why you even felt the need to question him that.

“Why would I be disgusted?” Levi asked, genuinely confused.

“I don’t know, it’s just.. you probably didn’t expect that coming from someone like me,” you mumbled. “I’m a doctor, I shouldn’t be hurting anybody, I took an oath to do no harm.”

“And?”

“And like you know, I’ve always been nice and polite and trying to be mature and all, and then suddenly I do this kind of thing to someone-“ you rambled on, cheeks growing deliriously warm.

“And that’s what makes you human,” Levi interrupted and gazed at you. “Nobody in this world is perfect.”

“But beating up someone like that, it’s insane and brutal,” your voice shook a little as you said this. You felt a slight stinging in your eyes, and you had to tell yourself to not cry. You still couldn’t believe that as a doctor and as a Survey Corps member, you had beaten your own comrade up. Levi saw that your hands were shaking. He was tempted to reach his hand out and place it over yours. He had never seen you so vulnerable and anxious before, you always appeared so calm and collected all the time. The ache in his chest grew stronger and his gaze softened.

“She pushed you to the edge, didn’t she? Everyone has their limits.”

“I guess, but I didn’t expect myself to actually beat her up.”

“Everyone’s a little twisted on the inside,” Levi remarked, his eyes honest and eerily serene. You processed his words, and you wondered if he was referring to himself as well.

“Have you.. ever done something like this before? Besides to the Titans, I mean.” You asked, and wiped away the few tears pooling in your eyes before Levi could see them. There was a short silence before Levi opened his mouth to answer.

“Yes. Yes I have. A long time ago.” He answered and looked ahead, as if searching for a distant memory.

“A long time ago?” You asked.

“I was born and raised in the Underground,” Levi suddenly stated. You blinked in surprise, not expecting him to suddenly speak up about this, especially the way he had been answering you so vaguely before. “I had to do what I had to do in order to survive in that place.” You wondered if Levi was telling you this because he was trying to make you feel better.

“Oh.. I didn’t know you came from the Underground,” you muttered and looked at him apologetically. You had seen what the Underground was like during your doctor days in Wall Sina. It was dangerous, cramped, and stricken with poverty. Someone as successful and as high-ranking as Captain Levi, came from the slums of the Underground?

This changed your whole perspective on Levi. You always thought he came from a rich background and a fine upbringing, from the way he always wore a cravat, drank black tea, and was so obsessed with clean spaces. Is this why he loves cleaning so much? Because he grew up in a dirty environment? This explained his rude way of speaking though, he must have learnt it from the thugs and criminals down there.

Meanwhile, Levi was rather surprised that you thought he would punish you or even hate you. In fact, he found your actions earlier rather _refreshing_. It’s true, that he had always seen you as the nice, polite girl. In fact, back then, everything about you was so picture perfect that it often made him wonder how you were so faultless, and even slightly suspicious sometimes. Not that he thought you were faking it, he’s just always on guard all the time. You also never came across as the type to lash out and beat up people like that.

However, seeing how you were able to stand up for yourself and witnessing this imperfect side of you, it made him feel more comfortable with you somehow. He remembered his past days when he would beat up strangers without remorse to obtain food and survive. Levi’s interest in you started to inch a little higher.

Suddenly Levi stood up and reached his hand out to you.

“Come on, we need to head back to the HQ,” he said, waiting for you to take his hand. You blinked in confusion. You reached your hand out to take his, and he pulled you up to your feet.

“Thank you, Captain. For looking for me and looking after me,” you said to him shyly, still holding on to his hand. A tiny blush crept up on Levi’s face. It took a while for both of you to realize that you were still holding onto each other’s hand, and once you did, you jumped a little as you let go.

The two of you covered the rest of the distance back to the headquarters with you explaining to Levi what exactly happened and what Johanne said to you. You felt a mix of guilt yet satisfaction for doing that to Johanne, while Levi simply said that Johanne had it coming anyway. Without Levi looking, you smiled a little. It felt reassuring to know that Levi didn’t shun your actions earlier or call you crazy, but instead, he related with you.

You wanted to ask him more about his life in the Underground, but you thought it would be best to not pry too much at this moment. It was already a miracle that he even told you himself where he was raised, this is good enough for you as for now. Besides, you wanted to save this talk for another time when you did not just beat someone up and almost had an anxiety attack right before an expedition.

Tomorrow is the day that you’ve been waiting for, you will finally get to see the world beyond the walls and do something that you’re truly passionate of – saving people and making a difference in this world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in this chapter I wanted to show the different dimensions to the reader's personality, and how she has a dark side to her too. Whenever I watch kdramas or animes with a female protagonist with that "nice innocent girl" personality, and never messes up or do anything bad, I always get a little irritated cause of unrealistic it is. So in here, I just want to show that that the reader does make mistakes too and does have a dark side to her. I want Levi to know about this too and realize that she's not as perfect or as "nice" as she seems to be, but that doesn't stop him from liking her and in fact, makes him more interested in her. Levi has a dark side and past to him too after all.


	11. The Expedition: Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reader voyages on her first ever expedition with the Survey Corps to resupply the base hut and investigate the strange Titan activity as reported. Will everything go as according to the plan?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note, I'm loosely following the Attack on Titan plot so the events of this expedition may not necessarily follow what actually happens!

**Chapter 11 – The Expedition: Part I**

You are eagerly waiting by the gates of the Wall among many other soldiers, already in position for the long-range scouting formation. You gave Jungfrau’s mane a little rub and turned to your left to smile at Mario. He smiled at you back, looking a little worried for you after what happened yesterday. Eren and the Special Ops squad were in front of you, along with Levi.

You took a deep breath to take in the atmosphere of this very moment, your first ever expedition. Everyone was blanketed in the Survey Corps’ signature green cloaks. Once Erwin finished his speech, the Survey Corps wasted no time to charge straight out of the gates. Some were yelling, some were cheering, and some remained quiet with concentration. Then, you saw green. Lots and lots of green. You had always imagined the outside world to look somewhat like an abandoned battlefield with nothing but fog and empty brown plains in sight. Instead, you were truly astonished to see the landscape enveloped with beautiful green grass and trees everywhere.

You all eventually scattered to get into your respective positions for the scouting formation, maintaining a good distance between each person. You, Mario, and the other soldier carrying the medical cart travelled much more closely to each other. Your wrist was feeling much better today too, barely any pain left. _I’ll be just fine,_ you assured yourself.

You continued riding for about another ten minutes or so, when you heard a firework-like bang in the distance. It was very far away, but you saw a red smoke signal on your right side. Remembering the lessons taught by Erwin, you recalled that this meant a Titan has been spotted. A green smoke signal followed shortly from Erwin’s position, and you shifted accordingly to avoid the Titan’s direction. _If we could just continue this until we reach the Titan forest, we should be safe._

\--

Levi was way ahead of you in the formation, but he still felt reassured knowing that you were positioned right behind him. The mission was simple, get to the Titan forest to resupply the base hut, and investigate the abnormal Titan activity as mentioned by the wall guards. According to them, some of the Titans that usually loiter outside the walls have suddenly wandered off on their own, and more abnormal Titans than usual were spotted. They were behaving rather erratically, like suddenly running off nowhere for no reason. This information was crucial to this expedition, and everyone is on high alert for abnormal activity.

Not long, Levi spotted the Titan forest not too far ahead. With this pace, he was sure that they could reach it very soon.

Or perhaps, he thought too soon, because multiple red flares started shooting from three different directions. _Shit, we’re surrounded. What the hell is happening?_

\--

You heard screaming in the distance, and shivers crawled on your skin. You saw the multiple red flares and immediately knew this meant bad news.

Suddenly, a black smoke signal appeared to your right. _Fuck, it’s an abnormal, and it’s close._

“What is happening?!” Mario yelled.

“An abnormal Titan broke through our right-wing!” The soldier carrying the medical cart yelled back. “The right side has no choice but to engage it!”

“But they might die!” Mario exclaimed.

“We must protect and preserve the formation at all costs, or we’ll all die!” The soldier yelled. “Just focus on riding ahead!”

And so you did for about another 2 minutes, when you heard galloping and shrieking near you.

“Hey! Help! Someone is injured!” A soldier yelled as he approached you and Mario’s position, carrying a bleeding soldier with him on his horse.

“Get him to the cart!” You yelled. “Mario, I’ll handle this one, you stay on your horse!”

The soldier dashed to the medical cart as fast as he could and dropped the injured soldier on the cart. He landed with a thud and he groaned from the pain. You dashed to the cart as well and jumped off Jungfrau.

“What happened??” You asked the soldier who brought the injured one here.

“The abnormal from the right! It almost tore his arm off!” He cried. “He lost his horse too. I need to get back to my formation, he can stay in the cart!” He then dashed back to his position on the right side.

Meanwhile, the injured soldier was doubling over from pain. His right arm was not looking good, it had bite marks and was bleeding, a lot. You had never seen a Titan before, let alone Titan bite marks, and the wounds looked extremely terrifying. He seems to have lost a lot of blood too from the way his face was growing pale. You quickly took care of the bleeding and somehow stitched the wounds up on a moving cart. It took a lot of concentration, especially from the way the soldier was screaming from the pain of the stitches.

“Sorry buddy, no time for anesthesia. I need to stop you from losing any more blood or you’ll die,” You apologized and closed off the last wound. As you bandaged his arm up, you saw two more horses dashing towards you with two more injured soldiers. _Oh shit, how many did that abnormal get?_

Mario jumped off from his horse and to the cart to help out. One had a concussion and the other had a broken arm. You two got into doctor-mode and fixed them up as quickly as possible. There was no way to fix the broken arm right now, but at least you stopped the bleeding and saved him from dying.

When you looked up, the Titan forest was already in front of you. You were so busy taking care of the soldiers that you didn’t even notice you had reached.

“We need to go and get them to the trees as planned. Let’s go!” You told Mario and he nodded.

You, Mario, and the medical cart soldier carried the three injured ones, and zipped up to the trees with your ODM gear. You struggled to balance yourself while carrying a full-grown man in your arms, but you managed to land safely on a humongous tree branch. Erwin did a quick check and concluded that there were no deaths, everyone was present.

“How are they?” Erwin asked you about the injured ones.

“They suffered from major blood loss, but we stopped it. They’ll definitely survive,” you reported to Erwin.

“Wonderful,” Erwin beamed, looking proud that the plan is going accordingly with no deaths so far. “Scouts, now we continue as planned! The logistics team can now head to the base to resupply, the scouting team keep a lookout for the abnormal Titans, and the rest keep guard here!”

“Yes, Commander!” Everyone cried out and got to work.

You continued tending to the three injured soldiers on the trees, and they all thanked you for saving their lives with tears in their eyes.

You sat down on the branch to rest for a bit, but when you looked down, your face turned as pale as a ghost. You spotted a Titan on the ground, a huge, deformed, and naked human-like creature. You had never seen Titans before and you’ve heard about how scary they were, but actually seeing them for the first time was still terrifying and heart-stopping. The Titan on the ground was looking up at you with lifeless eyes, scraping on the tree trunk as if trying to reach out for you.

“So this is.. a Titan?” Mario shivered, looking just as terrified. A few more Titans started walking towards the Titan forest. You were still observing the Titans intently. They were so ugly and scary, yet you couldn’t take your eyes off them. Somehow, your legs felt a little weak and you hugged the tree branch a little tighter.

“Ugh, those little shits started gathering here. We need to hurry.” Levi muttered as he walked right next to you. He looked at the injured soldiers who are now resting by the branches. “It seems like bringing you two was a good idea after all.”

“Thank goodness they arrived to us on time,” you sighed.

It didn’t take long for the logistics team to report back to Erwin, it seems like the resupplying mission was a success and the base is now properly set up. The scouting team reported no unusual activity so far, besides what happened on the way here. The higher-ups were discussing about what could explain the sudden appearance of multiple Titans earlier, when suddenly, a high-pitched scream ripped throughout the forest.

Everyone immediately jumped to their feet and was horrified to see an abnormal Titan with a female soldier in its mouth. It had somehow managed to climb all the way up to the tree and grabbed her in one fell swoop. Blood oozed from the girl’s mangled body, and the Titan swallowed her whole. Your eyes widened in horror and you felt your body freeze in terror. _What.. What is this?_ You had your fair share of gory experiences in medical school, but nothing prepared you for the gut-wrenching sight of a person getting eaten up by a Titan. You felt an intense urge to gag.

Suddenly, there was a flash in the sky and the shrill sound of metallic blades. You spotted Levi zipping through the trees and straight towards the abnormal’s direction. It was so fast that your own eye could barely catch it, but he spun in a 360-degree direction and sliced off the Titan’s nape with terrifying precision and power. _What was that?!_

“And that’s Captain Levi Ackerman for you!” Mario gasped in amazement.

“Nice, you took care of it!” Eren called out. You realized that this was your first time actually seeing Levi in action, and you were awe-struck.

“Don’t let your guards down yet, there could be more!” Levi hissed, his eyes scanning around the forest.

There was a loud bang and you all looked up at the yellow smoke signal in the air. Mission accomplished, it’s time for retreat. It seems like Erwin had gathered all the information he needed, although you were not sure what it was. The situation was starting to get more dangerous too. You zipped down the trees along with everyone else, about to head back to your horses inside the forest. _Now we just need to ride back to the wall-_

A loud snap echoed directly beside your ear.

You gasped and turned to your right to find that another soldier had been grabbed by the head by yet another abnormal Titan. Another shrill shriek ripped through the air, yet another soldier down. Fear crawled all over your skin as you watched soldiers getting picked off by the abnormals like flies. _Why are there so many of these abnormals and where did they even come from??_

“Soldiers! INITIATE FULL RETREAT!” Erwin bellowed.

“Everyone, get back to your horses as fast as you can!” Hange yelled.

You launched your grapple hooks to the trees and propelled yourself through the forest as fast as you could, all while keeping an eye out for Titans. The horses were gathered somewhere deeper inside the forest, where most Titans can’t reach them. Now the problem is getting back there without getting eaten by the Abnormals.

As you were zipping, you spotted Eren in front of you. All the Survey Corps members had been scattered everywhere because of the sudden attack, and Eren must have been separated from the Special Ops squad.

He had a worryingly angry expression on his face, and it does not look good. You knew he had a tendency to be impulsive and reckless, and you were afraid that he was going to pick a fight with the Titans on his own.

“DAMN IT! You’ll pay for this!” Eren shrieked and shot his wires in a completely different direction, about to take on a ten-meter Titan on the ground. _Shit! Is he going to-_

Your eyes widened as you spotted an Abnormal perched on top of a tree, eyeing Eren with bloodlust and ready to pounce on his unsuspecting figure. Fear crawled all over your skin, making your legs tremble a little. And then, you saw it jump.

“Eren! DON’T!” You screamed as you launched yourself towards Eren instantaneously to push him out of the Titan’s way.

You don’t even know if you could make it in time but at this moment, all that was on your mind was saving Eren, humanity’s hope, from that horrifying Abnormal. As you opened your arms to push Eren away, you felt another mind-blowingly strong force collide with the right side of your body. The Titan had decided to smack you out of the way and the force of its giant palm bulldozed you all the way until your body crashed into a tree. Excruciating pain traversed throughout you as your body hit the tree.

And then you fell, and landed brutally on the ground with a dull thud. You felt immense pain on the right side of your body, like something had pierced your skin open. You laid there on the ground, dazed and half-conscious. _What happened?_

Your head stopped spinning from the fall, and you realized that there was something wet on the right side of your shirt, and the taste of iron in your mouth. _Blood. A lot of blood. Crap, this isn’t good._ You heard yelling in the distance, but you weren’t sure who. _Did I manage to save Eren..?_

You slowly propped your arms up to push yourself off the ground and sat up. You looked up and saw the terrifyingly tall trees of the Titan forest, no Scouts to be seen anywhere. _Where.. Where did everyone go?_ Another wave of throbbing pain surged through your right side. _Right.. we were supposed to escape._

You looked down at your body and sure enough, your white blouse and brown jacket was drenched in blood. _Shit, I must’ve gotten a deep cut from falling onto some rocks. I need to get out of here before-_

Your heart stopped when you saw a large shadow on the ground. You looked up in fear to see that same Abnormal looming over you. You scrambled for your trigger to escape, but as you clicked and clicked, nothing budged, and you wanted to crumble at the realization that your gear had broken due to the fall. _Out of all times!_ The Abnormal, seeing that you had nowhere to run, reached out its gigantic hand to you. _No.. Please, no!_ You could only stare with helpless and fearful eyes as the hand drew nearer and nearer.

Suddenly, you hear blades slashing and the hand was amputated right in front of you with a brutal blow. Blood burst from the Titan’s nape. It fell to the ground with a thud and a figure emerged from all the dust and smoke.

“Oi!” A familiar voice called out. _Captain Levi?_

Sure enough, Levi shot his wires and landed in front of you.

“Why didn’t you escape?” He asked anxiously.

“Captain! My maneuvering gear broke when I fell!” You responded hastily.

“You were too reckless, jumping in front of the abnormal like that!”

“I had to, or Eren would’ve gotten eaten!”

Levi could only mutter a _'tch'_. He had seen the whole thing. Eren straying from the group and you jumping in harm’s way to save him from the abnormal. You hadn’t even been training for a long time and yet you did something so reckless and daring, it drove Levi crazy to think about what could’ve happened to you. Luckily, he stayed around your vicinity as everyone was fleeing, or he wouldn’t have been able to save you. _That was too close._

“Never mind that, you don’t look alright.” Levi narrowed his eyes when he saw your blood-stained uniform.

“We need to get out of here.. but my gear is broken.” You said as you clicked onto your triggers repeatedly, hoping it would somehow come back to life. “Where are the others?”

“They’re way ahead and the situation is shitty as hell, there are a group of damn Titans chasing them on their horses. They’re going at full speed back to the walls.”

“W.. What?”

“They can’t afford to wait for us, we need to somehow get back to the walls on our own.”

You wanted to break down at the realization that you and Captain Levi are now on your own in this forest full of Titans. _The chances of survival are slim._

“We need to find a horse.” Levi remarked as he slowly helped you stand up, putting his arm around you.

“I-I think Jungfrau might still be in this forest. He doesn’t respond to anyone else’s whistles other than mine.” You said. You put two fingers in your mouth and whistled as loudly as you can. The whistle echoed throughout the forest, followed by an eerie silence. You and Levi waited for any signs of Jungfrau as you kept a lookout for Titans. Miraculously, you heard galloping in the distance and Jungfrau emerged amongst the trees.

“Jungfrau!” You gasped and stumbled as you tried to walk towards him, and Levi panicked a little seeing your injured form.

“Now, we need a plan.” Levi said as he tried to stabilize you. “Right now, our priority is taking you back to the walls to get you treated. Or you might die from blood loss here.”

“T-there is no way we can make it back to the walls with just one horse and with me injured. Especially not with a horde of Titans running after us!” You looked at him in horror.

“But you’ll die here if we don’t stop you from bleeding.” He asserted.

“I can stop it right here. I have medical supplies in my backpack.”

Levi thought hard. Right now, all he wants is for you to stop writhing from pain.

“Wait.. Do you remember what Hange said about the Titans? How they are inactive at night?” You asked. “What if we hide somewhere first, and just head back to the walls at night?”

 _Wait, that might actually work,_ Levi thought and stared ahead at the colossal trees of the Titan forest.

“We’re heading to the base hut.” Levi said and looked at you determinedly.


	12. The Expedition: Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Wanna believe, wanna believe  
> That you don't have a bad bone in your body"
> 
> \- Be Kind, Halsey feat. Marshmello

**Chapter 12 – The Expedition: Part II**

“We’re heading to the base hut.” Levi said and looked at you determinedly.

To your surprise, Levi suddenly lifted your legs up and carried you in his arms. You gasped from this sudden movement and clung to his shoulders.

“Captain??”

“I’m carrying you to the base with my ODM gear, it’s safer to be up here in the trees. Make that damn horse follow you, we’ll need him to get back to the walls.” He remarked as he suddenly shot his wires. _Huh??_

And then, you were catapulted into the air in Levi’s arms in alarming speed. You gripped onto to Levi’s shoulders as hard as you can as you were paranoid of slipping out, you never even knew the maneuvering gear could handle such speed and momentum! You struggled to whistle and call out to Jungfrau because of how fast Levi was moving through the forest. You tried your best to look over Levi’s shoulder to make sure that Jungfrau was following you, and sure enough, you saw him following you on the ground.

It wasn’t long until you spotted a hut amongst the trees. It seemed somewhat like a treehouse or a cabin, and they must have built it high up in the trees for safety from the Titans on the ground. Levi landed on the doorstep of the hut, and after making sure Jungfrau made it there too, Levi slowly entered the cabin with you still in his arms. It was a small wooden hut and its interior was stocked up with gas cylinders, spare gears and even water and food supply. Levi made his way around the hut and found a room with a bed, it was specially prepared in this base for treating and accommodating injured soldiers.

He entered the room and started to lower his arms to lay you down on the bed. Your grip around his neck loosened as you felt your back touch the bed. Normally, you would probably freak out at this suggestive move but right now, you were just too distracted with the sharp pain on your abdomen. You looked up at Levi and saw that your blood had stained his white shirt and jacket as well, but he somehow did not seem to mind. He was too worried about you surviving. You slowly took off your medical backpack and asked Levi to help unpack the contents.

“Get me alcohol wipes, bandages, a needle, forceps, and a thread-looking thing.” You muttered while wincing in pain. “Oh, and scissors.”

Levi rummaged through the medical backpack and placed all the materials beside you on the bed.

“What are you going to do?” He asked worriedly after seeing all the sharp tools.

“The wound is too wide, I’m going to stitch myself up.” You responded. The inner corners of Levi’s eyebrows scrunched upwards in worry. He can’t imagine how painful it will be, and he truly felt helpless as he didn’t know how to treat you either.

“It’s fine, I can do it.” You nodded at him. You proceeded to slowly take off your green cape and brown jacket and seeing you struggle, Levi quickly helped to pull it off. Your vision suddenly started to blur, and you were getting too weak to even move.

“Over here, there’s a deep cut.” You said and weakly pointed to the blood-stained area of your shirt. A section of your white blouse was ripped off because of landing on the rocks, and you could see a part of the injury. You realized that you needed to take your blouse off if you were going to fix the wound properly. You can’t do a proper suture with so much fabric in the way. _But that would mean.._

You looked up at Levi who was looking at you worriedly and you felt your face grow hot.

“I-I need to.. take it off.” Your spoke softly in embarrassment.

“Take what off?” Levi had a confused expression on his face.

“My shirt. Help me take it off.” You blushed furiously. If you could, you would definitely have taken your shirt off yourself, but right now, you felt too weak to do that yourself.

“.. Are you sure?” He asked, looking slightly nervous yet still trying to maintain his stoic expression.

“Y-Yes, it’s fine.”

Levi hesitated, but eventually nodded in response and sat on the bed next to you. He reached his hands out to your neck and started unbuttoning the collar. As he did this, his cheeks grew steaming hot at the implication of this very situation. It felt wrong, but right at the same time. If this is what he needs to do in order to save you, so be it.

He made his way down and when he got to your chest, he stiffened. You watched as he undressed you, and your heart pounded when you felt his hand brush against the sensitive skin of your chest. You were afraid that he would actually be able to feel how hard your heart was beating. You bit your lip and looked away in embarrassment.

Levi eventually unbuttoned the last button, and pushed your blouse aside, revealing your bare skin underneath. It revealed your white laced bra, as well as the curves of your breast that bulged out of your chest. Levi blushed the moment he saw your exposed figure and felt like his heart was going to explode.

You didn’t take off your entire blouse as it was too much of a hassle, so you only kept the front open so you can see the wound properly. You then proceeded to ask Levi to help you clean the blood around the wound with the alcohol wipes. As steadily as possible, you held on to the needle driver to grab the needle and the thread.

“Are you sure about this?” Levi asked worriedly as there was no anesthesia or painkillers to numb the area.

“Yes. I have to stop the bleeding.” You said weakly. After mustering the very last bit of strength you had, you then pushed the needle through your skin and twisted your hand clockwise, so the needle goes up on the other side of your wound. You bit your lips to stop yourself from yelling in pain, all while blinking back tears. Levi could barely watch you as you continued driving the needle in and out of your skin, you looked like you were in so much pain, yet there was nothing he could do. This was not his expertise, so all he could do was keep helping to clean up the blood spilling through the side of your abdomen.

Eventually, you closed off the entire cut and Levi helped to cut off the excess thread. You sighed in relief when you were done, and your hands collapsed to the bed.

“I.. I’m done. The wound is closed. I just need to bandage myself.” You stuttered.

Levi’s shoulders dropped in relief as well. _That was way too intense to watch._

“Let me help you.” He said as he reached out for the sterilized bandage. Levi then proceeded to carefully slip the bandage under your body and wrapped it around the sutured wound. He was being extremely gentle with his movements, and you watched him as his bangs fell to the sides of his face as he carefully bandaged you. You felt your heart rate quicken when he started making his way upwards to the upper part of your stomach, where it was dangerously close to where your chest was.

When he looped his hand over the upper part of your stomach, his hand accidentally prodded against your lacey white bra, making your breast budge upward a little. Levi immediately felt his heart palpitate, and he tried his best to ignore what just happened and maintained a flat expression. He eventually finished wrapping you up and sighed.

“How are you feeling?” Levi asked.

“A little better, but still dizzy.” You responded. “At least I stopped the bleeding.”

“Can you move?” He asked.

“I think so.” You grunted a little as you decided to try and sit up to button up your blouse. The stitches are definitely painful, but not as painful as before when the wound was wide open. Levi rushed to hold on to your body to stabilize you.

All of a sudden, you two heard a loud thud outside the hut, echoing throughout the room you were in. Out of instinct and out of fear that a Titan was going to crush the hut, Levi jolted and pushed you down on the bed, shielding your body with his. Your eyes widened in alarm when you felt Levi’s body pinning you down, his arms wrapped around your shoulders and head.

However, nothing happened. No Titan came to crush the hut or grab you out from there.

You stayed in that position for a couple of seconds as Levi’s eyes and ears surveyed for anymore noises or movements. You held onto Levi’s shoulders tensely, and as you two were breathing heavily, you couldn’t help but take in Levi’s familiar scent. His hair tickled your neck and it brought tingling sensations all over you. Your almost-bare breasts were pushing against Levi’s chest and this made your heartbeat skyrocket and your face flush. _Why does this situation feel so familiar?_

You both peered at the small window and concluded that the loud noise came from a falling branch. No Titan in sight. You felt the muscles in Levi’s body relax a little from the tension.

Levi slowly propped his arms upwards and when he looked down at you, he froze. He had instinctively launched himself to protect you, and now here you were, caged under his arms underneath his body. _On a bed._ Levi wanted to curse his instincts for being wrong, but at the same time, this moment was just too…

He looked down at you, your hair spread out messily on the bed, your eyes large and almost sparkling, cheeks flushed pink and your dainty lips were slightly parted. Your delicate bare skin exposed, and your white blouse messily crumpled and all opened up. Levi felt feverish all of a sudden. This position, your expression, seeing you undressed like this, _it was too much._

Your hands were still resting gently on his chest and you stared back at his smokey grey eyes without blinking, never averting your eyes. The two of you were breathing heavily, either from the adrenaline of almost experiencing a Titan attack, or the steaminess of this very situation. Your eyes travelled downwards to where his lips were. This wasn’t the first time you saw his face up close, and yet you still feel a jolt of surprise and this time.. _desire?_ Maybe it was because he just saved your life, or maybe it was because the two of you were trapped together alone and you were basically almost half-naked, but you felt electrifying tension all over the air. And Levi felt it too _._ The way he was so gentle with you, and the way he was being so attentive and caring and.. so _attractive_. _What is this feeling?_

Levi felt a familiar rush of heat down his abdomen and inside his pants, tingling sensations coursing everywhere throughout him. Levi’s eyebrows furrowed, he had never been involved in any provocative situation with a woman before, so this sensation confused and overwhelmed him. For some reason that he could not explain, he felt the urge to lean in and just.. _devour you._

Suddenly, you felt pain on your abdomen again, and you whimpered. “Ah!”

Levi’s senses jolted back to him, and he finally sat up properly and gave you space. “Sorry, did I hurt you?”

God, even hearing the way you whimpered earlier triggered something deep inside of him. He could no longer deny this familiar rigidness under his pants.

You shook your head gently and slowly sat up again. As you sat up, your breasts bounced a little at the movement, and Levi’s eyes could not help but dart to the area as it happened. He wanted to slap himself for looking and acting like such a dumb horny teenager. He decided it would be best to give himself some space from you first before he embarrasses himself further.

“I’m going to check if they restocked the medical supplies here too, maybe there are some painkillers. I’ll be right back.” He muttered and left the bedroom.

“Okay.” You blinked. Eventually, you buttoned up your blouse all while trying to recover from the incident. Your wound was pulsing with terrible pain, but you ignored it, still high from the adrenaline rush of being rammed onto the bed by Levi Ackerman. _What just happened?_

\--

Levi came back to the bedroom later on looking much calmer, carrying a horde of medical supplies with him. He urged you to take oral painkillers because he could not stand seeing you in so much pain. Levi then started muttering about how you should clean the wound again because it might be dirty and infected, and about how you literally fell on mud earlier. He also replaced your broken gear with a new one.

“You fell on rocks and mud, you should clean it again.” Levi asserted

“I did!”

“One more time won’t hurt. This place might not be so clean either.” He muttered while walking around the bedroom, swiping his finger on random furniture while inspecting the dust.

“What are you doing?” You raised a brow.

“Checking. This place is dirty as shit.” He scoffed. “How’s your wrist?”

“It healed ages ago.” You replied with a small smile.

You wanted to giggle at how fussy and mom-like he was being, you relished this moment of discovering a new side of him that you have never seen before.

“Sorry about your, um, shirt.” You said meekly and eyed Levi’s blood-stained and crumpled shirt. You wondered if he felt disgusted about having your blood all over his shirt like that.

“Don’t mind it.” He replied. You twiddled your thumbs and watched him circle around the bedroom, eyeing the dirty furniture with the disgust.

“Captain, thank you.” You said to him, breaking the silence.

“For?”

“For basically saving my life earlier, and not leaving me behind in this forest.”

“Why would I leave you behind, stop talking nonsense.” He muttered. "You basically saved your own life too by stitching yourself up."

“I really thought I was going to die.” You chuckled a little.

“That’s the fucking Survey Corps for you, our lives are always on the edge.”

You chuckled again, “Captain, how about Eren? Is he safe? I only remembering pushing him out of the way.”

“Yes he is, he’s heading back to the walls with everyone else. I’m going to teach that brat a lesson when I come back.” Levi growled.

At times, Levi appeared to you as the ruthless and cold soldier, a weapon of Humanity who would destroy anything that got in his way. Especially after seeing the way he was so powerful with killing the Titans earlier. You’ve also seen him talk back to superiors, he just appeared so confident and apathetic, you would have never imagined that you would be able to get along with someone like him. And yet, you learnt that he was also empathetic, and cherishes human life. From the way he looked relieved after seeing the soldiers you saved earlier, or the way he protected his teammates with his strength. And also the way he basically risked his life to stay behind in this forest just to protect you, basically still a nobody in the Survey Corps compared to the other elite soldiers. _Levi Ackerman, what kind of person are you?_

“You should get some rest here, the sun will be setting in a couple of hours. I’ll keep a lookout for Titans.” Levi said as he headed for the door to leave.

“No, don’t!“ You blurted out without thinking.

Levi’s head turned and he looked at you in surprise.

“Please stay.” You spoke quietly.

Levi lifted his hand from the doorknob, and turned around to face you. You don’t even know why you said that, but you didn’t want to be left alone. The inner corners of Levi’s eyebrows lifted up, and he looked at you empathetically. You were sitting on the bed, covered in dirt and traces of blood, hair messed up, and clearly looking distressed. It is your first expedition after all, and you almost got eaten by a Titan, of course you would be scared.

“Sorry Captain, I just didn’t want to be alone.“ You looked down and mumbled nervously.

“Don't worry. I’m not going anywhere.” Levi said, and walked to you. He understood that you must be feeling overwhelmed, and sat down on the bed next to you.

You felt a warm glow inside your chest, and you looked up at his steadfast grey eyes. His gaze had a strange radiance, but it somehow made you feel safe and comforted. Hearing those words and being with Levi Ackerman in a place like this, you could not feel any safer.

You and Levi sat down on the bed next to each other, discussing your plans on what to do when nighttime reaches. It seems that when sunlight disappears completely, that’s when the Titans start becoming inactive. You were worried of not knowing the way back to the walls, but Levi seems to remember the layout of the outside world from his many expeditions.

“Won’t the Titans know that we are in here?” You asked. “They can sense humans right?”

“Most of them are on the ground anyways.” Levi replied.

“How about those abnormals that were climbing the trees?”

“I killed off the last one. There could be more, but for now this is the safest place out of the entire damn forest.”

“Just curious, but how many Titans have you killed?” You asked.

“Hah? I don’t know, probably a lot.” Levi muttered.

“Meanwhile, I didn’t even kill any Titans on my first expedition.”

“You’re not expected to, you’re a Military Doctor and this expedition was an unexpected one.” Levi raised a brow at you.

“True. You just make it seem so easy, I probably would’ve gotten tangled in my own wires.”

Levi only shook his head in response. Your wound started to become more bearable after the painkillers started kicking in. You leaned back on the wall behind the bed and sighed, and Levi followed suit. Soon, your vision started to get blurry and your head started to feel heavy. Before you even realized it, you had started nodding off. Eventually, your head slipped and landed on Levi’s shoulder, causing him to flinch a little. Levi looked at you, your eyes were closed, and you were breathing peacefully. You’ve fallen asleep on his shoulder.

Levi looked outside the window, there was still some time before sunset. He wondered if you felt uncomfortable resting on his hard shoulder like that. Levi then slowly placed your head on his hands and shifted you gently so that you could lay down on the bed. The exhaustion of this whole expedition and the drowsiness of the painkillers must be getting to you.

You continued sleeping on the bed peacefully, in your crumpled and blood-stained white blouse. Levi saw you shiver a little and his eyes widened. He tried looking for your green cape, but couldn’t remember where he had placed it earlier when he took it off hastily. Levi then took off his own green cape, and gently threw it on top of your body as a blanket. He hoped it would keep you warm.

Levi then leaned in close to you and gazed at your tranquil expression. He reached out his hand and tenderly brushed your hair away from your face and caressed your cheek softly. How strange it was, that a near-death situation in an expedition somehow led him to this very moment – being able to save you, protect you, and keep him close to you.

Levi felt an ache in his chest, like a flame that had erupted deep within him. That flame expressed a yearning, a longing. He wanted to keep protecting you, and keep having you by his side. This feeling made him so vulnerable, so exposed.

The flame that erupted within him felt dangerous, yet it was so warm that it kept drawing him closer and closer, threatening to engulf him whole.

Levi Ackerman was falling for you, and he did not know how to stop.


	13. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Upon returning from the expedition, the reader isn't handling the post-expedition trauma very well. Meanwhile, Erwin has already started making plans for future endeavours, which greatly involves the reader herself. Will she be able to handle this?
> 
> Trigger Warning: Trauma, Anxiety  
> Spoiler: Levi No Regrets OVA Spoilers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys! It has been too long since my last update and I am so sorry to keep you all waiting! Life's starting to get a little hectic with school and work, and I wasn't in a very good state for the past couple of weeks :( I felt really unmotivated and down in the dumps for some reason, and I didn't want to write this story for the past few weeks, cause I didn't want to produce something half-heartedly. BUT, I have been feeling better lately and my motivation is starting to pick up again, so here is another chapter! However, I can't promise that I'll be able to update as frequently as before since I have to turn my focus to my schoolwork first, so do expect less frequent updates. I will definitely still be continuing this story <3

**Chapter 13 - Return**

You woke up to a familiar scent enveloping you, a clean and fresh detergent-like smell with hints of black tea leaves. You opened your eyes to see a green cape blanketed over your body, and Levi sitting on a chair. The room was dark, the only source of illumination came from the faint moonlight outside. You looked down at the cape again, and wondered if this was Levi's.

“It’s time to go.” Levi said to you after noticing that you had woken up.

The sun had set, and the Titans should be inactive at this time, and now the two of you are going to begin on your treacherous journey back to the walls. After gearing up and scanning the area outside the hut for Titans, you two maneuvered to Jungfrau who was waiting patiently at the bottom of the base hut.

Levi helped you up on Jungfrau, being extra careful with your injuries, and climbed up behind you. Levi insisted that he sat behind you just in case you felt dizzy and fell off the horse, and also, he simply felt better having you within his field of vision. Having his arms around you made him feel like he could protect you better. Once again, you were in a close-up situation with Levi and you couldn’t ignore his presence behind you. You could feel his warmth behind you, and his chest would rub on your back occasionally due to Jungfrau’s galloping. 

He pulled the reigns and directed Jungfrau to start running, and you both rode quietly in the dark. You felt anxiety crawling in your stomach like a virus, afraid that a Titan might suddenly emerge in the darkness and engulf you whole. Levi was quick to notice your anxiousness though.

“Don’t worry, we will definitely make it back.” He muttered reassuringly behind you. You glanced back to look at him and gave him a nod.

You eventually made it out of the forest, and into open area. The iridescent moonlight shone in the night sky, and there was a strange sense of tranquility in the atmosphere, the only noise was coming from Jungfrau's galloping and the fluttering of your green cape.

You weren't able to find your own cape in the hut, and upon hurrying, you decided to just leave it behind and continue to wear Levi's instead. He didn't seem to mind either. With cold fingers, you tightened your grip around the green cape on your body, and drew it closer to your face. _It smells like him._

“I really hope the Titans are inactive.” You muttered, trying your best to stay alert and look out for any strange movements in the distance.

“I don’t know about the abnormals though, those little shits always catch us by surprise.” Levi responded, remaining sharp and vigilant as always.

You spotted the walls in the distance after a while.

“Captain, we’re close.” You told Levi. “Should I fire a smoke signal to alert the wall guards?”

“Yes, but do it after we get a little closer.” He said.

\--

“H-Hey! There’s someone out there!” A soldier on top of the wall stammered, blinking his eyes and looking into his binoculars once more.

“Ha? You must be seeing things.”

“I saw smoke signal! Wait.. There are two soldiers!”

“Give me that!” The other soldier snatched his binoculars to see for himself, only to gasp when he saw the fast-approaching figure.

“It’s-it’s Captain Levi! And Military Doctor Y/N!” The soldier shrieked. “The Scouts reported them missing this afternoon, they’re back!”

“Quick! Prepare the elevators!”

\--

Luckily, the wall guards were quick to respond, and both of you were able to make it back up safely. You were greeted with a couple of flustered soldiers, especially seeing you and Levi’s blood-stained clothes.

“Captain Levi! We thought you’d never come back!” A soldier bawled.

“Tell that shitty Erwin that Y/N and I are back.” Levi muttered.

“Yes Captain!”

You climbed out of the elevator and suddenly felt a wave of nausea hit you. Your legs suddenly felt like jelly, and Levi watched as the last bit of colour drain from your face before you collapsed to the ground. In a panic, Levi rushed over to your side to catch your head before it made impact with the ground.

“Someone get a medic here! She’s injured and lost a lot of blood!” Levi yelled to the surrounding guards.

“Roger!”

The soldiers hastily got into action to bring you to the Survey Corps medical ward, and also to let Erwin and the other Survey Corps members that you and Levi had made it back safely.

\--

You were brought to the medical ward in the Survey Corps headquarters, and got your wounded treated immediately. Levi, feeling anxious after seeing the sheet-white colour on your face, followed you to the ward to make sure you were alright. After consulting with the medics, Levi was reassured that you were only suffering from a minor concussion and fatigue due to blood loss. You should be fine from a few days of full rest and your wound should take some weeks before it fully recovers. The medic also warned that there is a possibility of trauma. Most rookie soldiers who just returned from their first expeditions usually experience post-traumatic symptoms.

Levi breathed a sigh of relief knowing that your injury was stable, but a sudden throb in his head interrupted his short moment of relief. _Ah, it’s happening again._ This headache, this nauseating feeling in his stomach, it’s all too familiar. It’s the heart-wrenching feeling when Levi had just nearly lost someone he cares about. For a brief moment, his mind travelled back to when he saw you standing in front of that abnormal titan. Clothes bloodied, eyes frozen in terror. He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to think about what could have happened if he had arrived a second too late. It is best to push away these negative thoughts for now.

“Ugh, I really need a shower.” Levi muttered as his nose wrinkled. He hated the smell of Titan blood and his own sweat after coming from an expedition. He looked at you apologetically.

“I’ll be back.” He said quietly and turned to leave the medical ward.

\--

The next day, you regained consciousness. Your eyes fluttered opened slowly, and you took in the unfamiliar environment. You realized you were lying down on a hospital bed, with curtains blocking your small space from the rest of the medical ward. _How did I end up here?_ You sat up and looked down at your body to see that you were in a hospital gown with fresh new bandages wrapped around your abdomen.

You immediately regretted your decision to sit up though, as you were greeted with a sickening pounding throughout your head. _Fuck. What happened to me?_

You observed the makeshift room. There was a table next your bed, and beside a bunch of bottles and medical supplies, you saw a pile of clothes sitting on the tabletop. It appears to be your Survey Corps Uniform, along with Levi’s cape that you wore on the way back to the walls. You spotted a stain of reddish-brown on the white blouse. _Is that.. my blood?_

Suddenly, you remembered. You were injured from the expedition and made it back here with Levi, and before that..

Images of the abnormal Titan looming over you suddenly morphed into your mind, that sickening stench, those petrifying lifeless eyes. _And oh god,_ that female soldier dangling in the Titan’s mouth, her body parts all mutilated and shambled. Bile stung at the back of your throat and your stomach recoiled. You lurched forward in your bed and retched, but nothing came out from your mouth.

A nurse overheard you and pushed the curtains aside, immediately tending to you.

“Doctor Y/N! Are you alright?” She asked worriedly and quickly prepared a plastic bag for you. You only let out an undignified groan in response. Soon, she rushed out to fetch a doctor.

After taking your time to calm down, you finally felt well enough to answer questions from the doctor.

“How do you feel right now?” A young dark-haired male doctor asked.

“Like shit.”

“Of course, it must be the acetaminophen making you nauseous, do you know what that is?” He cleared his throat.

“I’m literally a doctor.” You glared at him. The nausea put you in a bad mood and you did not appreciate his condescending tone.

“Oh! My apologies, I didn’t know that.” He cleared his throat again, looking embarrassed.

“Huh? I come here everyday, if you’re a doctor here surely we must have met before.” You softened your tone.

“Ah you do? I must have been working different shifts!” He chuckled nervously. You glanced up and scanned him from head to toe, observing his sharp angled eyebrows, ice blue eyes, and messy jet-black hair. You religiously come into the medical ward for work every night, and you basically know all the doctors who worked there. Being the outgoing and sociable person you are, you also tried your best to get acquainted with every doctor there, and yet, you somehow could not recognize the male sitting right in front of you. Strangely, you also could not find a name tag on his coat. You tried your best to recall seeing him somewhere in the ward but to no avail, he remained unfamiliar to you. _Hmm_ , maybe he’s new here and got recruited right when you left for the expedition.

“Anyway, I will just explain to you what happened.” The doctor said, interrupting your stream of thoughts.

“According to Captain Levi, you collapsed and fainted upon your return to the Walls and you’ve been asleep since yesterday evening. You only have a minor concussion and blood loss, but other than that you are fine.”

“I see.” You answered

“Have you been getting any headaches or.. flashbacks?”

You stayed silent for a few seconds and hesitated before speaking. “Yes, yes I have.”

“The headaches are normal, especially after a concussion. But what kind of flashbacks?” He asked as he jotted down notes.

You gulped down the rising bile in your throat. “The Titans.. eating..”

You gulped, and couldn’t finish your sentence. You remained quiet and tried to calm down your breathing. The doctor noticed, and after jotting down a few more notes and giving you anti-nausea pills, he decided it would be best to let you rest again.

Feeling your head start to spin again, you laid back down on the bed and closed your eyes.

“Y/N!” A voice called out.

You nearly toppled out of your bed at the intrusive voice and gathered yourself before annoyingly turning to face the source of disturbance. A familiar mop of platinum blonde hair peeked out from the curtains.

“Mario?” You inquired. “You scared the bejesus out of me!”

“What does that even mean?” He cackled and entered your little space. “I’m so glad you’re okay!”

“Yeah, that expedition didn’t go so well did it?”

“I thought I lost you!” He wailed, his eyes rather watery. “When we were escaping and looked back and I didn’t see you anymore, I thought- I thought you-“

“Hey, it’s-”

“And when I heard you went missing and didn’t come back to the wall, and you came back here with blood everywhere! I felt so bad that I cried!”

“Mario! Calm down, I’m alright and I was with Levi too.” You reassured him, messing his blonde hair up.

“Next time, don’t go off on your own okay.. You promised that we’d stick together no matter what!” He wiped his tears away, genuine concern etched all over his hazel brown eyes.

“I’m so sorry, I had to save Eren.” You gripped his hand tightly.

Mario stayed in your makeshift room and made himself comfortable at the edge of your bed, chatting away with you about the expedition and how you both felt about it. You felt a pang of hurt in your chest and felt bad for worrying Mario so much. The two of you had grown so close in a relatively short time, you felt so lucky to have a sibling-like figure to worry about in a place like this.

“Back there, were you.. scared?” Mario asked quietly. You bit your lip and looked down.

“I was terrified.” Your voice faltered as you spoke. 

“I was too.” Mario said, gripping on the bedsheet until his knuckles turned white. “I hope to never see those Titans ever again.”

You two remained silent for a moment, realization sinking on you both on the horrors that you would have to face in the future, and what this job as a Survey Corps soldier really means. Both of you felt the same thing after seeing the cruel world out there, and the mind-blowingly terrifying Titans. You were gripped with terror. Unfortunately, this won’t be last time you had to encounter Titans, and it’s too late to turn back.

“Hey, Mario. Did the Survey Corps Medical Ward recruit any new doctors lately?” You queried, trying to change the subject.

“Not that I know of,” Mario shook his head. “Why?”

“Oh. Nothing, was just wondering.” You muttered. Strange. Maybe you really did miss out on someone.

“Y/N, I have to go and check on those soldiers we rescued the other day.” Mario sighed as he stood up to leave. “I’ll visit again later, rest well!”

As he brushed the curtains on his way out, you noticed another figure standing outside of your cubicle. And that figure was..

“You talk a lot for someone who just got punctured in the stomach.”

That kind of language and tone could only come from one person.

“Captain!” Your eyes turned wide, not expecting to see Levi so suddenly. He entered your makeshift room, and you couldn’t help but scan your gaze at his appearance. He looked fresh today, donning a fine black blazer, white blouse, and black trousers. Eyes sharp as always, but there was a hint of softness behind those steely grey eyes.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, now standing in front of you with his hands in his pockets.

“Better, but kind of nauseous. They redid my stitches, so you don’t have to worry about me getting infected again.” You chuckled, attempting to joke around a little. “How long have you been standing outside?”

“Not long.”

“Um, have you been eavesdropping on us?” You raised a brow.

“Tch, as if I’m interested in your little banters.” He muttered. Although, he did overhear Mario fussing over you like a worried little brother. Levi thought he felt a nostalgic ache in his chest, reminding him of a certain someone from his past. When Mario walked past him out of the ward, he could’ve sworn he saw Isabel’s shadow trailing behind him. Mario’s childishness, personality, and the way he acts like your little sibling, reminded Levi of Isabel. Isabel often wailed a lot at him too.

“Captain, how’s Eren?” You asked.

“Are you seriously worrying about that brat right now? Worry about yourself first.” He muttered.

“Someone’s cranky.” You pouted, and Levi sighed.

“He’s _fine_. Especially after I kicked him in the ass for insubordination.”

“Your definition of fine and my definition of fine certainly has its disparities.”

Levi was so tempted to roll his eyes at you. It was your first expedition. You got chased by a group of abnormal titans, got slapped to a tree by one, punctured in the stomach, stitched yourself up, hid in a hut in the middle of the Titan forest, and you still had the mental capacity to make jokes and smile? Levi wondered if you even remembered the expedition. Little did you know though, that you were purposely distracting yourself with humour and conversations with others to stop yourself from remembering the horrors of what you experienced. And besides, you just can’t help but to joke around with him, especially after what happened in that hut. You were afraid things would be awkward with him afterwards, so you used humour to diffuse and prevent such a tense situation from happening.

“I have some updates.” Levi said.

“About?”

“The expedition.”

You felt a chill run down your spine.

“Erwin seems satisfied with expedition. Despite the abnormals going haywire, which was a miscalculation on our part, we achieved the main goal of our expedition. We managed to properly scout and observe their behaviour and resupply the base hut.” Levi explained. “According to Erwin, the expedition was a success.”

“A success? But we lost people.” You furrowed your brow.

“Loss is inevitable, but our fatality rate was much lower than normal.” Levi continued. “You and Mario were able to save a lot of our soldiers, and Erwin regarded this as part of the success.”

You blushed a little upon hearing that, and felt your chest swell a little. Getting recognized by the Commander of the Scouts was not a small feat to brush away.

“And because of that, Erwin now has proof and a reason to fully launch the development of Survey Corps Military Doctors, and officially establish it as a completely new department.” Levi said, and you swore you saw a sparkle in his eye.

“A new official department? For Military Doctors? In the Survey Corps?” Your eyes grew wide.

“Yes. In fact, he’s already begun procedures for mass recruitment and training of new Military Doctors. It seems like you and Mario showed him promising results for this potential department.”

You gasped upon hearing this, and emotions of pride and excitement swelling within you.

“It might be too early to say this since you’re still recovering, but Erwin already has plans to set you and Mario up to become the Section Commanders of this new department.” Levi said. _What?!_

“That’s so great! Captain, I’m so honored!” You stuttered and flushed. “But why me? I just got here.” You blurted out before you could stop yourself. You were indeed ecstatic to hear that there will be more joining you as a Military Doctor, and the idea of leading a department in the Survey Corps was astonishing. But you also had doubts on whether you could lead properly and be responsible for the lives of so many.

“Ha? Out of all the recruits, you clearly showed the most aptitude. You even managed to progress faster in training than most normal soldiers here, you might even surpass those with years of training in no time.” Levi raised his brow.

“But still, I don’t have any experience-“

“We observed you in our recent expedition as well, and we all concluded that you were the most suitable for this role, even more than even some of our experienced soldiers. You have superior medical skills as a doctor, and impressive aptitude as a soldier.”

“We literally got left behind.”

“Yes, that couldn’t be helped since no one saw the abnormals coming. But Erwin was impressed with your calm composure and quick decision-making skills in dire situations. We’ll need that too.” Levi reassured.

You remained silent for a while, trying to process the whole situation. Your head started to grow hot at the thought of bearing such a heavy responsibility. _What’s going to happen? How can I lead everyone? How can I make sure everyone is safe?_

“I don’t need a fixed answer now, I know you’ll need some time to process this. I’m just giving you an early heads up, because I think that Erwin will want to summon you himself and talk about it.”

“Alright, Captain.” You said, and tried to calm yourself down. You drummed your fingers on the bed nervously. _Mario and me? Section Commanders?_ You remembered that time in the expedition when the both of you were rushing to stop a soldier’s bleeding, dismantled arm. Eyes wide, hands shaking in fear of the Titans waiting below the tree like crocodiles in a swamp.

“I heard you got a concussion too. Are you.. feeling alright?” Levi asked, causing you to flinch.

“A little bit of a headache. But I guess I’m alright.”

“That’s great to hear, you got smacked pretty hard back there.”

“Ahah.” You smiled weakly in an attempt to respond to him, but a pain within the core of your head betrayed your smile. Images of the female soldier dangling from the Titan’s mouth flashed in your eyes and you felt ripple of queasiness throughout your stomach. _You couldn’t save her._

“Ugh..” You muttered and leaned forward, gripping the bedsheets tightly. Levi, quickly noticing this, immediately rushed to your side.

“Y/N, what’s wrong?” He asked, eyes flashing panic. His voice was muffled, and his figure was blurry with your tears. Your only response was a whimper, and your breath caught on your throat. Seeing your eyes brimmed with tears, and how you were sweating and breathing heavily, Levi realized he had seen this behaviour way too often in new recruits. Trauma.

 _Oh God._ He cursed himself for not being careful enough with triggering you, he should have known better. He shouldn’t have brought up the expedition so soon.

“Hey, hey. Calm down, take a deep breath. You’re safe here.” Levi dragged a stool next to your bed and sat down next to you as he tried to calm you down. You clenched your eyes shut and whimpered as pain shot through your temples. You didn’t want to remember or see those images anymore. _Make it stop._

“Take a deep breath, take it slow.” Levi said as calmly as he could as he rubbed his hand on your back to soothe you. _God_ , you looked so calm all this time, and you were even joking around that he mistook you for being completely unaffected from the expedition. How did he not realize you were trying to hide it all this time? Levi clenched his teeth as he felt guilt creeping throughout him.

After several more reassuring words from Levi and him trying to calm you down, your breathing eventually steadied, and your vision was no longer blurred.

“I-I apologize. I shouldn’t have brought that up while you were still recovering.” Levi apologized softly and looked at you in worry.

You opened your mouth to speak. "I don’t know what happened..”

“It’s okay, feeling this way is normal. It’s your first time.” Levi rubbed your back again. For some reason, tears started filling your eyes again.

“I just..” You choked on your tears. “I remember that girl. I couldn’t save her and she was in the Titan’s mouth and it was so digusting and sick and-“

“Hey.” Levi interrupted. “It couldn’t be helped, and you already saved a lot of people from experiencing that same fate. Right now, don’t think about the Titans.”

You sighed buried your face in your hands.

“I was just so scared, seeing all that.” You spoke, your voice barely a whisper.

“Anyone would be.” Levi said, and gripped your hand reassuringly, afraid that you would break out into another panic attack.

“I thought I would be fine and strong enough to handle seeing all that,” You paused. “I thought I could forget about it, but I guess not.”

True, Levi thought. The adrenaline of the expedition and instinct to survive can be so strong sometimes that your mind tends to ignore the horror of the Titans when you’re in the moment. But then, the scary part is what happens afterwards, because that’s when your adrenaline dips and the post-traumatic symptoms start to catch up to you. Like when you’re running a marathon and the extreme fatigue and numbness start to sink in at the end of the race.

“Most soldiers experience this, but I promise it will go away soon.” Levi said softly. As you both sat in silence, Levi realized he learnt something new about you. Something that he took too lightly of previously, and it was your tendency to brush things off with a laugh, sometimes hiding your real emotions and problems. How could he be so careless?

Levi’s ears perked up as he suddenly heard faint footsteps and saw the curtains slightly brush. A silhouette flickered by. _What was that?_

Levi’s grip on your hand loosened.

“What’s wrong?” You asked softly, noticing his gaze focused on the curtains.

“Nothing. Just thought I saw someone.” Levi muttered quietly before turning his attention back to you.


End file.
